Metrics

The cognitive load is high in this country. New ways of talking and new ways of thinking are complicated by new measures of just about everything. To know how warm it is, we multiply by two and add thirty; to know how much something costs, divide by the exchange rate; to know how heavy, multiply by 2.2; to arrive at 1700 be there at 5; to drive 12 kilometers down the road, pay 5.5 reis for a liter of gasoline. It's heady work, all this calculating, and it gets exhausting but I think we are both getting a little better at accepting the numbers for what they are and skipping the math.  

Advice from a man

We needed to find somewhere cheap to live for the summer and had been looking in some random places. One of these places is Porto do India, an Indian retreat a few miles up the Canto Da Lagoa trail. While we were checking the place out, the owner shared some language-learning advice. He told us to focus on phrases rather than words or rules. He said when he came to Brazil he learned a new phrase every day for the first thirty days and after that he was well on his way. He shared a story about a day when his phrase was não estou nem aí which literally translates to "I'm not even there" and is a strong way to say "I don't care."  He was dating a Brazilian who asked about plans for the evening. His practice was to use his phrase all day, especially when responding to questions so he responded não estou nem aí and it caused an argument that bothers him to this day. Interesting language approach, decent story. I don't think we will stay at the retreat but I did learn something from the guy. If I pick a phrase for the day, it will be something like do fundo do meu coração which means from the bottom of my heart and I will use it all day long to tell Carol how much I love her.

Seeing what we couldn't see

As we get to know this country and culture better we are able to see things that we couldn't see before. Carol used to get kind of fraught about the grocery stores because she could never find what she was looking for. Now she understands how things are categorized so she knows where to look and she knows how things are packaged so she recognizes what she sees. With the notable exception of maple syrup, she can now find whatever we need. Another place where we are able to see things we couldn't see before is on the streets. At first, the "motorcycles" were just one of the many faceless hazards coming out of nowhere and adding to the chaos. Then we started to realize that it isn't chaos and the motoboys have their place. Their place is weaving through the traffic and in-between the lanes of cars. Once we figured that out we started really seeing them. Turns out, they aren't faceless hazards after all, and, as Carol pointed out with some incredulity, some of the motoboys are women.  

Emerson

There was a school called Emerson near the house where we lived in Salt Lake. It had a field that served as the neighborhood dog park and we went there a lot. Like sometimes every night a lot. When we got settled in at Matadeiro, we started calling the nearest stretch of beach Emerson and went there most nights to throw frisbees. It was a proper Emerson with other dogs for Keppy to play with and lots of room to run. The Emerson at the Açores house was also a piece of beach near the house. It didn't have many dogs or a doggy vibe, but there was plenty of hard, flat sand and it was great for throwing balls. Our new place is at the top of a dirt road. We tried to make an Emerson out front but it isn't a good Emerson, you can't throw a frisbee very far for fear of losing it over the edge and you can't throw a ball at all cause we are at the top of a hill. The dogs around here don't play. They bark furiously from behind closed gates. The road ends at a trail that goes over a hill to a beach. We tried to make that beach our Emerson but it didn't take. Our current Emerson is the big grassy bank along the lake near our language school. It's a chill place, with hippies and some dogs. The dogs don't play much but they don't bark much either. It's okay for ball and frisbee throwing, pretty good for people watching and we like the vibe. Unfortunately, they started constructing a fence there today, so we may be looking for a new Emerson soon.

Winner winner chicken dinner

Brazil is world-famous for churrasco, or barbeque, and it is a big part of the culture.  As such, Carol and I have been doing this fun thing on Sundays that we call go to the kiosk in the little town and get a rotisserie chicken. It's a pretty good time. Kepner loves it. He sits with rapt attention watching the sausages and pieces of meat as they rotate and roast. I'm pretty attentive too and for the same reasons, some of those pieces of meat are really big. Carol does the talking. Pretty soon a roasted chicken is placed in a box, and then the guy adds a bunch of potatoes from the bottom of the roaster, potatoes that are buttery on the inside and flavored by the drippings. Then he throws in a baggie of farofa to make it a meal. Farofa is cassava flour that has been spiced and fried in bacon grease. It's a subtle but addictive substance added to many broths, beans, stews and meats here. It's a winner, this chicken dinner. It smells fantastic, tastes divine, feeds us for days and is fun for the whole family.  

Hard knocks

We learned our drinking lessons the hard way growing up but by the time we reached middle-age we had it pretty dialed in. Unfortunately, we are having to relearn the hard way again as new-comers in this country. They don't meter the shots here; plus, the cachaça can be a little moonshine-y and the caipirinhas can get rough.  On the day I virtually attended a buddy's wedding I was feeling warm and happy after my first caipirinha so I ordered another. I had eaten very little. The drinks were very big, served in mason jars and filled with a cachaça made by the devil himself. I don't remember that much more about the evening. I wasn't driving, I made it home and I am truly grateful that Carol wasn't there to witness what occurred. Carol knew this and we discussed the red flags and tried to learn from the experience but some things have to be relearned the hard way, again. We were trying to soothe our sad selves last Monday, listening to some music having drinks down by the canal when she ordered a second caipirinha. She was feeling much better after the first one. Talking bem good in Portuguese. Not eating much. We got her home and she is recovered but it was not pretty. I hope we learned this time because, frankly, we are getting too old for this shit.

Time flies

Today marks ten years since I kissed the back of Carol's hand after boozy drinks next to a warm fire on a cold night in Leadville Colorado. We were just kids back then, 43, monolingual and nervous about love. We had no idea what adventures or trials would come. We had no idea of the joy we would find. It's a pretty good chunk of life, ten years. It will change you if you let it and it sure does fly when you are having fun.

The last Pimsleur

One of the most consistent resources that we've used to learn Portuguese has been Pimsleur language courses. We just finished our last lesson and its hard to believe that it's over. The very first Portuguese words I ever heard were through Pimsleur. They sounded unintelligible and scary but things got better over the course of five years. We kept on listening and repeating, off and on. Five courses, one hundred and fifty lessons, half an hour each, almost always more than once, often more than twice.  We kept on, off an on. Lessons in front of the stereo sipping campari. Lessons in the middle of nowhere, CDs skipping across washboard roads. A year or more in between lessons. Lessons everyday. It became part of our culture, singing Gloria from Flashdance and American Man. Checking the time to see how much longer. Learning about foods and places, some of which we have been able to sample and see. It is the end of an era, finishing Pimsleur, and even though it was just a language course, there will be an empty hole sometimes. 

Low-brow life

 

We are perched on the precipice of exchanging our American tourists existence for more of a working class Brazilian existence. I think we are good with it.  You can only be on vacation for so long. The change started to solidify this week when we decided to splurge at the gas station. Instead of just filling the tank, we went inside to treat ourselves to something nice. We each chose a soft drink and a baked good from the case. A coxinha for me and pão de queijo for Carol. We took our treats to one of the little tables outside.  I shared shared a sip of my soda which was a type we had not tried, we watched the traffic, smiled at a nearby baby, and talked about our plans. Eating gas station food on the street seems very different than eating seafood on the beach, but sitting in front of that gas station, it hit the same. It gave us a taste of the culture and time to enjoy our surroundings and each other and we didn't have to cook or do the dishes. I think we will do just fine with this new chapter.

Calma

 

The Brazilians let us know when our attempts to communicate fail. Being told that "it's better" that we speak in English is something Carol and I have both experienced. Being told to "calm down" has been used only on me. I get it from my mother's side, where the women tend to be tightly wound. I remember trying to teach my grandma the sign language alphabet and worrying that she would dislocate something with her herking and jerking. My mom gets a bit frenetic too. Carol and I sometimes reenact her fraught attempts at the word cachaça, "Cashasha! Cassaca! Cacasha!" because it cracks us up every time. So, I imagine I can seem pretty het up when I'm having a hard time communicating. When this happens, people advise me to "calma." The gardener at the Açores house told me to calma, and some of our teachers, and a cashier at a buffet. Last weekend, a pharmacy tech "calma"ed me as I tried to explain that Carol is allergic to a common cold medicine ingredient. I feel like I could have gotten the message across, given time and a patient listener, but she gave me the calma and returned with someone who could speak English.  It was not a language win. 

Don't let the bed bugs bite

 

Our first night at Matedeiro, we killed the first of four Brazilian wandering spiders that we saw in that house. At the time we didn't know about the Guinness world record for most dangerous spider, or that the genus literally translates to "murderess" or that the venom causes hours-long erections. We didn't know any of the fun facts, we just knew that the spider on the bathroom wall was six inches in diameter and very creepy. Although neither of us like killing, we eventually called an exterminator. Then we got to the the lovely Açores. Our perfect beach house was crawling with cockroaches, an insect for which Carol has a particularly low tolerance. We washed dishes after every meal, including the dog bowl, wiped up spills immediately, and became obsessive about sweeping the floors and taking out the trash, all to no avail. We became killing machines and were considering our options when winter came and they just kind of went away. Our new house seemed free of creeping things at first. Then Carol got what we thought was a spider-bite on her wrist.  A couple of days latter, she had half a dozen bites including one perfect little stigmata in the center of her palm. I thought maybe she had stuck her hands into something noxious, she wondered about spiders, we joked about her piety.  Soon she had 21 of the bites, on her wrists, up her arm and on her neck. We consulted the internet and learned that we have bed bugs. An exterminator is coming.

The Doctor's Office

 

I needed to see the doctor and used google to picked one with a good review-by-star index. I didn't want to call the office because I still struggle to be understood, so I sent a text message through WhatsApp. I quickly engaged with a helpful receptionist who used a lot of energetic emojis and scheduled an appointment for the following Monday. I said that I had insurance but was told that it's mostly hospitals that take insurance, I would need to pay at the time of my appointment. It was 80 bucks. When I got to the office it was like I had stepped into a spa. The receptionist greeted me by name, inquired about my drive, and would I like an expresso or some cookies. I waited in a comfortable chair in a polished lobby and noted two enormous glass vases, very pretty, filled to their brims with used syringes and empty vials (pictured). My appointment started exactly on time. The doctor was delightful, she held my hand, looked me in the eye, wrote out a treatment plan, laughed at my jokes and hugged me when I left. The whole experience was both very similar to and very different from health care experiences I have had in the US. The similarities, I think, are western medicine; the differences, I think, are culture.

Penguins in unlikely places

 Penguin video

I've always had a thing for penguins but I guess I didn't know much about them. I thought they lived in the Antarctic. I  associated them with ice and snow. Imagine my surprise when we were walking down a sunny beach in Brazil and noticed an oddly shaped sea duck and then realized that it was an honest to god Penguin. We watched the little guy for a half an hour or more, swimming, surfing, fishing, and (in this video) coming out of the water so we could really get a good look. And then, hurrying back into the water because Keppy wanted to get a good look too. Since then, we have seen several more, because now that we know what to look for. Apparently it is penguin season here in the south and you really never know what you are going to see around here.

Filling out forms

All the paperwork that we need to do to live here may eventually pay off, but right now it is driving us to drink. Every step requires notarizations and certifications and copies and PDFs. Then there are the actual forms with complications like phone numbers not having the right number of digits and dates being reversed. Bartender please. It is a complex maze of broken links, uninterpretable question, long lines, and form sent to apparently nowhere. Probably the very worst of it is the good old catch-22. Those classic little conundrums like needing a permit in order to get the address that you need in order to get the permit. Make mine a double! 

The dog não fala

 

To get Keppy to Brazil, we had him certified as a service animal which was expensive but effective. If you say sit - he sits, if you say off - he offs and if Carol's feet get cold he warms them with his belly. We taught him a lot in the year before we left, but we didn't teach him Portuguese. In retrospect, we should have. When someone says xo xo he doesn't go and when they say fora he doesn't get. This has caused some problems for us and it hasn't been great for him either. Little kids want to throw his frisbree but they can't make him drop it and because of the accent, he doesn't recognize his own name. No one can get him to sente-se, abaixe-se, or venha at all and people think he isn't very bright. None of this is helping him make friends or us find dogsitters. So, we are currently taking our dog with us to The Language Club and working to make a bilingual vira-lata out of him. 

Jesus Christ Superstar

Carol and I buy a fair amount of handmade jewelry and homemade goodies when we are out of the beach or the streets. We like to engage with the local vendors and to contribute to the culture, and we appreciate the art. This perspective began to develop the hard way. The first time we were in Rio, our Airbnb host warned us against flashing our cash. We took the warning to Copacabana beach where I tied, but failed, to take a picture of a Jesus Christ Superstar sand sculpture. I had barely put my phone away when someone started yelling at me in Portuguese. I stuttered and stammered and he switched to English. "You speak, English" he said, and he was right. "You took a picture, you have to pay" he explained, pissed. I said I didn't have any money. "You have money" he said, and was right again.  I had bunch of $100s in my purse (equal to a bunch of US 20s) but didn't want to pull out the wad. "My wife is pregnant" he said.  "I need money" he said, "and you took a picture of my art." I didn't know what to do. I hadn't actually taken the picture, but I felt like that was beside the point, Carol didn't have any cash and I wasn't going to pull out my roll. "I'm really sorry" I said and we walked away. He yelled after me, very clearly and in perfect English, "Fuck you!"  Carol and I talked during dinner and agreed, we did have money and it was his art. Later, we found the guy near his sculpture. I handed him a twenty and all was forgiven. He called me friend and insisted that I take another picture and offered to pose in it. It wasn't a very good picture but it was a very good lesson. 

Getting it

The Brazilians that I talk with about such things, have a hard time with the English word "set."  I have to take their word for it.  I don't remember learning English, but "set" doesn't seem particularly hard to me. I know that as a learner of Portuguese, the hardest English word for me to get is "get."  It is a common word in my internal narrative but it doesn't exist in Portuguese. You don't get married or dressed, you marry or dress.  You don't get lost or drunk, you are lost or drunk; If you get a gift you gain it; if you get a job you arrange; a number you obtain; groceries you buy; and a shot you receive. No one will get you a manager in Brazil, but they may call one; you aren't going to get a ride, but you may catch one; and you won't get a second chance, but you may have one. Want to get something done? Try making it done instead, there is no get in Portuguese. No one gets happy, or sad, or lonely or mad - but they may become these things. You can't get to there from here, but you can go there; you can't get out, but you can leave; and you will never get it, but you will struggle mightily, every day, to understand.

Manners

I talked to one of our teachers recently and asked if Brazilians think we are gross because we eat with our hands. The English word "gross" sounds like the Portuguese word "grosseiro" which means "unmannered" so he understood what I was asking. He assured me that it wasn't counted against us that we eat with our hands. Brazilians don't tend to do it, but it's cool that other people do.  He then suggested that it is the directness with which we speak that is considered grosseiro. He asked what I thought of the sentence, "Do you want to stop by later?" I thought it sounded good and this proved his point. Asking if someone wants something puts them in the awkward position of saying they don't want the thing, which is rude, or in the awkward position of saying that they do want something, which is a little too direct. Complicated, right? He suggested using, "could it be that..." instead. Now that we understand, we are going to work on asking our questions in a less grosseiro way.

Aho!

I went to a sweat lodge ceremony called a Temazcal. It was hot, and very cramped. I was a little underwhelmed during the ceremony but felt absolutely reborn the next day. During the ceremony they used the word, "Aho" a lot. When a hot rock was passed into the tent, the sweaters would yell "Aho!" when someone would share or sing, "Aho!" when the shaman poured water to create more steam or sprinkled incense to make the rocks sparkle, "Aho! Aho! Aho!" I didn't Aho! myself because I didn't know the word or what it meant. After the ceremony, I asked around. One person said it was something like "amen" but without the connotation of prayer. Someone else said that it had a meaning in between "hello" and "thank you" - a grateful welcoming. I like it.  I will raise my "Aho!" and voice my welcome for what comes at the next one. Kind of a shamanic version of "Thank you sir, may I have another!" Also, Carol has returned to me, "Aho!"

Ode to Açores

The time has almost come to leave this amazing place, Açores and our little house next to the sea. As with Matedeiro, we didn't like it at first and couldn't wait for it to be over and now we hate to leave. We have loved this house. The big windows where we watched the sun and the moon rise and saw dolphins swimming and monkeys climbing. It will feel empty to leave the constant sound of the sea and lose this intimacy with the tide and the waves. We will miss walking to the little town across the bay, with the salty fishermen mending their nets and dogs napping in the shade of wet boats. We did not have enough time to uncover all of the secrets in the rocks here, the art, the coral, the sacred things. We didn't lie in the hammocks enough, or take enough walks by moonlight, or swim enough in the sea. There wasn't enough time to take it all in and there never could be. Maybe the thing I will cherish most about Açores will be the comfort that this house, and this beach, and this ocean brough me while Carol was away. I'm sad that she missed out on a month here. I'm glad she is coming back tomorrow and that she will get to spend one last night in this little blue and white house, on the corner, by the sea.

The second shortest day

 

Today marked the beginning of winter and the shortest day of the year. It's a little bit of a rip off to have the shortest day again so soon, but I saw a glorious sunrise when I woke up at 7 this morning and the colors were great when I walked the dog at 4:30 this afternoon (pictured).  Also, I'm only a day in, but I'm digging the winter so far. Pineapples were a buck a piece at our local fruit mart; The waves are getting huge and the ocean sounds fantastic; I saw my first toucan in the wild; and I got invited to go on a hike. Apparently the hiking is good this time of year because the mosquitos and snakes are controlled and the temps are just right. My most recent winter in Salt Lake was really grand, with the record breaking snow and all, but I'm looking to whatever this second winter has to offer.

Altered minds

 

We've only been here a few months, but I've already been invited to a handful of consciousness expanding events. I don't know if it is part of the broader Brazilian culture, or more specific to this island, but I have witnessed the fruits of nature being used to feed more than just the body. The most tame of the substances is probably cacao, which will give you a lot of energy; the strongest is probably ayahuasca, which may give you a new life. I went to a gathering this weekend that was somewhere in the middle. We used a locally grown fungus and found comfortable places to go where the medicine took us. I went into the trees and watched each one move in it's own way and within each tree I saw each leaf move in its own way, and the movement was ordered and chaotic and timeless and fleeting. Then I went to the ocean and saw the water form into waves, each immutable, with its own shape and power and grace and when the waves broke they were gone and the water went back into the sea. I hope to remember the things I learned and I hope they planted a seed in me, that will grow into a person who is a little less judge-y and a little more free. 

Stormin' mormons

It is sad to have Carol 6000 miles away, but the deep sense of darkness that I have been experiencing was actually my first tropical storm. I didn't even know. Thing got real dark, the power was spotty and everything just kind of felt heavy. I missed Carol. I barely went outside and Keppy was cool with it. We cuddled in and missed Carol. The lady that owns the house checked in a couple of times. I assured her that Carol would be back soon and that I was fine. Then the sun came out and I went out to the beach and saw that things were significantly changed. I turned on the news and learned that Santa Catarina, the state that I am in, was digging out from flooding caused by a cyclone. Who knew? According to the internet, everybody knew. The news has been full of it and folks on twitter were concerned. It's a good lesson for me to connect during the work week. I should at least check the news every day. On the bright side, Carol's visa seems to be going through as planned and I won't need to spend many more cyclones oblivious and alone. 

Aint no sunshine

 

Like the old song says, ain't no sunshine when she's gone - it's not warm when she's away - ain't no sunshine when she is gone - only darkness everyday. It's so true. My sweet Carol has been in the US for 16 days and it's like the lights went out, winter is approaching and nights are dark and really long. Not metaphorically, but actually -- that's what is happening. Plus it's been raining hard for four days and even the dog doesn't want to go outside. I think it might be cozy, if I had my Little One but as it is, ain't no sunshine and ain't no fun. 

Happy Holidãos

Today was Monday. At the beginning of class, the teacher asked how my weekend was and then he corrected himself and asked how my "holiday" was. Interestingly, when he said the word for holiday he added an "ão" sound to the end of the word. He said feriadão instead of feriado.  Adding ão was an indication of a bigger, better holiday. I asked what was up and he explained that when a holiday falls on a Monday, Wednesday or Friday it is just a regular holiday, a feriado, you get your day off and you are grateful. But, when a holiday falls on a Tuesday or Thursday, then it can provide a bridge to the weekend. Brazilians often get the intervening day off, making it a four-day weekend - a feriadão. This happened last week with the Corpus Christi holiday on Thursday. I missed it completely because I'm not Brazilian and I didn't even know. I'm making up for it though. Our 4th of July holiday is coming up on a Tuesday. I'm going to make like a Brazilian, take the Monday off, and have myself a happy holidão. 

We eat with our hands

Someone mentioned to us that Brazilians largely don't eat with their hands. Since hearing this, Carol and I have observed watermelon and pizza eaten with forks and knives and french-fries eaten with toothpicks. Sometimes our cultural observations are wrong so we checked with our friends Herbert and Martha. They confirmed that while there is variation, Brazilians generally don't like to touch their food. I had the opportunity to observe the full spectrum of finger-food-eating today. Four friends had finished a hike and were grabbing a snack at a nearby bar. They ordered two pastries and cut them into four pieces. One lady cut her piece into smaller pieces which she ate with a fork - civilized. Two ladies used the not-quite-paper napkins from the table to hold theirs - and now I know what the not-quite-paper napkins are for. The forth lady was a little loud, chatting with me, drinking beer, and feeding pastries to the dogs. That lady tore pieces of the pastry off and ate them with her greasy fingers - American style. It does seem a little primitive, seeing it from the outside, and a good reminder to be a little more cultured with our finger foods moving forward.

Be like Bernie

We went out to dinner the other night with a mixed group of Brazilians and American ex-pats. An ex-pat named Nathaniel told a story about his buddy, Bernie. Nathaniel and Bernie met in Brazil learning Portuguese a few years back. Nathaniel was a serious student, building his vocabulary and focused on grammar. Bernie wasn't as focused but really liked to party. The two went out one night and while Nathaniel struggled to understand and be understood, Bernie was meeting people and having a gay old time. The difference, Nathaniel thinks, was that Bernie capitalized on the tone and cadence of the language. He elongated his vowels, exaggerated his syllables, and sang out the few words that he knew with gusto. The Brazilians appreciated his effort and matched his tone and enthusiasm. They communicated fine. I'm pretty sure Nathaniel shared this story because he watched me struggle with the language that night. It was a good reminder to relax a little and have fun some fun, get out of my linguistic shell and communicate in a different way. Be like Bernie.

The bank

 

When it comes to speaking in Portuguese, Carol does a lot of our talking, so I was pretty nervous about going to the bank by myself. I needed to go to a particular bank, pay a fee and get a receipt. Once I got to the bank I saw an open area with a bunch of ATMS on the left and a separate room with tellers on the right. I entered a revolving door to go into the room but a quarter turn in, the revolving door locked and lights started flashing. An armed guard opened the door and walked me back through to the other side, saying something about my purse. A nice guy on the other side asked what I was there for. I told him I needed to pay a fee and get a receipt. He understood, gave me a slip of paper and explained that I couldn't take anything metal through the door. So, I passed my purse through a hole and the man held onto my little knife because it is illegal to bring a knife into a bank in Brazil.  I made it through to a teller and learned that my paperwork had expired. I would need to go back to the airport, get my paperwork updated  and return to the bank, which I did, but it wasn't without challenge. Maybe I will share those challenges another day. It's always a process.

Rules of the road

The driving here has taken a little getting used to. Our Brazilian friends recommend thinking of the rules of the road as "suggestions." Seems right. The exception is the "monitored electronically" signs, if you speed past one of those, lights will flash  and a ticket will come via email (true story). Everything else though -- stop signs, speed limits, center lines, flashing lights -- merely suggestions. It works out. In fact, the only real rule of the road is that you have to work it out. If you need to do 30 in a 50, no one honks, they slow down or go around (no need to wait for a passing lane). If you need to accommodate a cow or a bicycle with multiple passengers, two lanes can become three. To make a left in traffic, you just push in. They expect it and will give you a thumbs up and then you will give them a thumbs up. It's super civil. But if you hesitate, then you are a menace and they start to honk. Carol is a great Brazilian driver, I still get honked at. But, Carol was the one to "discover" the electronic monitoring signs and she is currently in the US, being a menace and getting honked at. 

The dogs of Matadeiro

 

Our good boy doesn't really dig the dog scene at the current place. There are some resident dogs, but he hasn't found anyone to pal around with yet- and no one to hump. So we were all excited to visit the very doggy Matedeiro last weekend. It didn't disappoint. Jowls of Fury was quiet as we approached but we called, "hey, Jowlsy" and he responded with some slobbery rage. When we crested the hill where you can first see the surfers, Scruff-A-Luff-A-Gus showed up out of nowhere. Keppy knew him in an instant and they tore off  down the hill, around the rocks and across the sand. After things with Scruff played out, we moved on down the beach in search of more action. We didn't see the dogs we were looking for on the first pass but on our way back, luck was with us. We saw the One Who Bared His Teeth and then we saw the wheelbarrow guy and then Sandy Patty came out from behind a wall. The real Sandy Patty, Kepner's very best girlfriend. It was a spirited reunion filled with chasing and wrestling and a tiny bit of humping that got shut down fast and athletic moves and in the end, tired, smiling dogs. Sometimes things are as good as you remember. This was one of those times.

Carol picked the Black lady

During a slightly blotto phase of our going away party, Carol went to the fridge for some coconut water. She pulled out the carton, looked at it seriously and said, "I picked the Black lady." 

"Huh?"

"At the store, I picked the Black lady to bring home." Turns out, the cartons of Itapoã coconut water have different pictures on them, male/female, black/white. As Carol reached for a carton, she recognized there was a choice. She looked at the pictures, considered the people, and she made a conscious decision about who to bring home. She picked the black lady. I'm glad she told me. We make choices with our money every day. I want to be thoughtful in making those choices. I'm not sure if this is a Brazilian thing or not, but I'm going to start noticing.

Talking about toucans

Carol came home from her yoga class tonight and said one of the other yogis had showed her a picture of six toucans sitting in a tree on a nearby hill. This is cool for so many reasons. It's cool that Carol found a yoga class that she likes. The fact that other students are engaging with her and inviting her in is really cool. I like to think it would happen to an estrangeira just learning English in Utah, say, but I'm not sure it would. The fact that she followed the conversation and came home telling me stories about what was said is definitely cool and shows that language is being learned. It is also freaking cool that we are living in a place where toucans sit in the trees. There are some resident macaws that hang around in town and fly screaming over the house sometimes, but the toucans are wild, they legitimately live here, and you can't get much cooler than that. 

The wash

Turns out, our brains store information in categories. It's true. I measured it in graduate school. For what it's worth, if you read the word "animal" you will be faster to recognize the word  "aardvark" than if you had read the word "vegetable. This organization by category helps us think. Trick is, the categories are subjective. Living in a foreign country impacts thinking, partly because the categories get rearranged.  Like the way we sort the wash. Here, it isn't by colors or whites or towels or delicates. Our choices include cotton, synthetic, or wool. We're fine with thinking about the laundry in this way but it isn't how our American brains do the sorting. Furthermore, although we have googled it, neither of us knows if we should choose the coat hanger or the shirt with the clock in the armpit for the drying cycle. Just constantly scratching our heads...

If you leave your phone in an uber

 Some do's and don'ts for if you leave a phone in an Uber in Brazil:

• Don't use Uber's "have the driver call you" option - if your phone is in the Uber, you can't take the call, even if they try to call, which they won't.
• Don't enter your wife's number after selecting Uber's "driver didn't call me back" option - its a foreign number, they won't be able to call it, even if they try, which they won't.
• Don't use Uber's "someone else left something, please contact this number" option, even if you have a Brazilian number to enter because no one will call. Just forget about handling this through Uber.
• Do find the phone using whatever "track my phone" app is available.
• Do use the app to turn off all the functionality for the phone. It will make you feel better.
• Don't keep calling the phone, its on silent, nobody is going to hear it, and watching the battery deplete will stress you out.
• Don't go the the drivers house, even if you see the phone stop in a residential area for the night.   You are in Brazil, cars and residences are locked behind gates and nothing good is going to come of creeping around the neighborhoods at night.
• Do put a personalized message on the dial pad so when the phone wakes up, it shows your message ("MAGNUS, Whatsapp Carol [## #### ####] $$$$! 😁👍🙌".)
• Do use the 5-minute ring option to turn the sound on, show the message, and make the phone ring for five minutes or until someone pushes a button to stop it.
• Don't be surprised 36 seconds into the ringing when the ringing stops. Soon, the driver will contact you through Whatsapp and you can work out how to have the phone returned.
• Do tip the driver!

It's not like we are dumb

 

Carol and I are of average intelligence back home, but here we are kind of dumb. We do dumb things like throw toilet paper in the toilet. Clearly, and as every potty-trained Brazilian knows, if it doesn't come out of your body, it doesn't belong in the toilet. There are signs up sometimes, in Portuguese of course, but dumb Americans like us still come around clogging up the pipes and causing trouble. We have also been known to get lost looking for the first floor (the ground floor is on the ground and the first floor is up one, genius) and we once gummed things up in a parking garage (you are supposed to pay before you get back in your car, der). So, it's not like we are dumb but we are definitely culturally under-developed, and it makes us do dumb things, and we apologize a lot, and we do feel dumb sometimes.

Six year wish

 

Six years ago, the idea of setting our sights Brazil was being considered and we went to check it out. Carol found three very different places for us to try, Rio De Janeiro, the island of Florianopolis, and and an interior town close to a national park called Praia Grande. The picture is from Praia Grande. We checked out the city life, the salt life, and the rural life. We appreciated the differences but were taken by the similarities. The churrasco, street art, stray dogs, motorcycles and make shift soccer fields were shared across the places we visited. Maybe it was because we were able to triangulate the three different perspectives, but it seems like we were able to get a taste of Brazilian culture on that trip. We opted for the salt life and we are grateful everyday for this opportunity to soak it in. 

Age matters

 

A young guy in our class asked if we really think age matters when learning a language. Yes, junior, it fuckin' matters. The old dogs/new tricks thing is real. It's an overstatement, sure, but there is a reason the expression evolved. Babies learn language by merely existing in a speaking world. We have a teacher who gained fluency by playing American video games when he was a kid. Are you kidding me? Carol and I are reasonably smart, highly motivated, and we study hard. We have taken classes for years, read books, studied verbs, made Brazilian friends, listened to hours of language CDs, quizzed each other regularly, and spent the past 7 weeks living in Brazil doing everything we can to get a grasp on this language. We are slowly getting there, but we are far, far, from fluent. Learning a new language gets more difficult with every year that passes and don't let anyone tell you differently.  

Immerson

 

We say we are learning Portuguese through immersion, but that's largely not true. We are in the water but we aren't under it. All the signs we see are in Portuguese and the labels on our food and the media we consume. But the truth is, we can get by pretty well with the limited language that we have and mostly we speak in English. Last weekend, when the new car went belly-up, we got immersed. I was googling about tow trucks in Brazil and the whole mechanic process. Carol was googling words we have never studied in class, like insurance claim. When it came time to communicate, it took both of us and all of our effort. I learned to swim through the "sink or swim" method back in the 70s. It was pretty stressful. Language immersion feels the same. 

Vira-lata

People ask us about Keppy's "race." We thought it was strange at first because we think of it differently but the words for race and breed are the same here, "raça." When we say we don't know his raça, people respond with words we don't understand. 

Vira-lata means "turn can" and it's slang for street dog. It can also mean mutt. Brazilian vira-lata are usually small to medium sized, wiry, and often brindled. Keppy is bigger, more buff, and spotted. Turns out the words for spotted and buff are the same here too, "malhado." So, people say he is a vira-lata malhado. Since we learned this term we use it whenever we get a chance. It rolls off the tongue, usually gets a courtesy laugh and knowing this piece of language helps us fit in little better - and every little bit helps. 

We bought this car

We bought this car. Carol did the work.  No one at the car shop spoke English. No one in the inspection station, no one from the insurance agency, no one at the repair shop, no one at the notary, spoke English. It was a complicated, bureaucratic, learning event with just one breaking point which happened at a cartório in the middle of a long day. The first cartório was closed, the second was hard to find and the driving was stressful including stopped traffic because of a cow in the road. Once she got parked (difficult) and found the place (not what you'd think) there was a kiosk which provided a real life multiple-choice language test in order to get a number to get in line. She passed the test and got the number. Everything seemed to be on track when the lady asked the names of her parents, and then asked her to prove it. Turns out, you have to show a birth certificate to buy a car in Brazil. When she texted me she was crying in the car in the parking garage, calling everyone fuckers. You have to be tough to buy a car around here. You also have to have a little help, you have to be smart, and you better be pretty damn good at Portuguese.

Ceremonial ceremonies

 

The first time we went to a cultural ceremony in Brazil it was Candomblé in Salvador, Bahia. The guy told us, in Portuguese, what to wear. It was very important to not dress in black. We should not dress in black. He said "dress" and "black" a lot and we knew those words and that's what we did. It was awkward for everybody, two white people dressed in black in a roomful of Black people dressed in white. We didn't understand a word of the ceremony, but we did throw popcorn, and Carol got spun into a trance. So we were able to participate, but it wasn't pretty.  

The most recent ceremony was a cacao ceremony over the weekend. We followed the instructions and made it to the fire more-or-less on time, with food to share, dressed appropriately, and with most of the right things, although we did forget the cups for the cacao. While we were there we meditated, set intentions, drank the medicine from borrowed paper cups, listened to prayers, and participated in the music. There are benchmarks along the way and things are improving.

Say my name

 

I like my name; "Kristin Swenson" --it kind of rythmes, I think it sounds happy, and my parents gave it to me.  Its cute, but hard for folks to here to say. Kreeshc-tein they say, like they are trying real hard and I know it isn't easy. I also know its impossible to remember something that you have no mental framework for. I know it is embarrassing not to know someone's name and that people tend to fill in the blanks. A Chinese guy whose name sounded to me like "Shit, yeah!" and who went by "Jay" taught me this. Our new teacher asked me if I every go by "Cris." I don't, but I could. My Grandma once suggested Kris, and I think it's okay. Carol and I tried it with the guy at our nearby bar-restaurant when he asked our names. "Carol and Cris" we told him. "They both start with 'C'" he informed us. That felt like a win, so I am going to transition to "Cris" and see how it sticks.

Needs met

 

An update on the "what they don't have in Brazil" situation. Turns out, some things things they don't have, they do have. We asked our teacher about baking soda. He said to look near the cleaning supplies and pointed us toward the broom-selling shop on the corner. Sure enough, they had it and we bought it and Carol's shirt is stain-free and she is looking great. Dog toys were harder to find but they too exist here. Carol found a chichi pet store with meat in the food and a selection of dog toys and now Keppy has a ball that floats in the sea. Maple syrup we haven't found. The translation is associated with a urine disease, so we don't ask much but there is a place nearby that serves pancakes (panquecas) on the weekends, so who knows?  Ziplocks probably aren't a thing and we have moved on.

What language is this

 

I noted an interesting milepost on the language learning journey yesterday. I was at the Astrais beach bar when an older couple came up to ask the server if the places behind the bar were for rent. He didn't know and went on. I told them that we had rented a place. They asked how much and about the features. They were from Uruguay and traveling in a motorhome, but liked Matadeiro and were interested in renting a place for a couple of nights. I told them what I knew. A few things seemed hard to communicate, but I'm used to that. I know they speak Spanish in Uruguay but didn't think much about it until the woman described something  using "caliente"  for 'hot" instead of the Portuguese word "quente." I asked her what language were we speaking in. Tuns out they were speaking Spanish and I was speaking Portuguese and I had no idea. They laughed at my surprise and pointed out that we did just fine. I'm not sure whether not knowing what language is being used is a good sign or a bad sign, but it was certainly interesting and made me think differently about language and languages and what it means to communicate.

Acculturation

 

It was cold last night and we wore sweaters up the beach this morning. Carol said it was 15 degrees when she woke up, when we got to the car it was 17, and by the time we returned from class it was 22. These numbers had their own meaning in their own right and I didn't even think to try to covert them. I just knew that 15 was pretty brisk and 22 was super sweet. Its a step. A small step, but a step.

Ode to Matadeiro

 

Matadeiro beach is the kind of place you never want to leave. We will, in just ten days, and it kind of breaks my heart when I think about it. The next place is a much nicer house with equally great beach access but it wont be Matadeiro and I can't imagine loving any place like I love this one. I love the 20 minute walk in from our car. I love the crabs and the tides, the big waves and the small ones; the smell of dope, the surfers, the tourists and the guy who pushes the wheelbarrow up and down; the casual beach bars and all the beach dogs; and I love our little camper of a house, tucked back down the trail, with its capybaras, and crazy chicken birds that make a racket every morning, and even its spiders and bugs.

Community

 

We've had people to the house twice so far. Our teacher, Herbert, and his wife Marta came the first weekend and welcomed us warmly. We hope to see much more of them in the future.  Then we ran into a fellow student from The Language Club and invited him over for a pina colada and cookies. All conversations on our porch, so far, have been in Portuguese and it really matters. We need community if we are going to learn. We need to share stories and ideas, we need to give advice, and get corrected, and to sympathize and explain and connect and we need to do these things in Portuguese. Neither of us knows how to find community in this new place, with this new language. Carol went to a yoga class, we chat with the dog people and vendors on the beach and the guy that is renting us this space and his parents who keep and eye on things, plus we have The Language Club.  That's our community so far, but the intimacy we associate with community isn't happening yet.

Livin' the dream

 

We been here 'living the dream' for a couple of weeks. Today was the first day that felt like it.

 It rained forks and knives (as they say) yesterday and we settled in for a soggy weekend. But it wasn't meant to be. When we woke up, it was cloudy but not raining and we enjoyed a lazy morning, watching birds and taking our time.  Around noon, we walked the three minutes to the beach, and played in the waves, body boarded, and kicked balls for the dog until we were hungry and parched. We bellied up to the nearest beach bar for a seafood and cocktails and once we were full and quite boozed, we walked three minutes back home as the sun set and the light rain moved in. I don't know that today advanced our Portuguese any but it sure brought the stoke, put a little in the tank, and may motivate us to try harder tomorrow. 

Needy needers and their needs

 

Carol and I have been talking a lot about culture, what it means, what ours is, and how it influences  language.  We recognize that we approach our needs with our American brains. That's culture, and it isn't always helpful. We have googled words to try and communicate our needs. We tried to find baking soda to get a rust stain out of Carol's favorite beach shirt, we tried to find maple syrup because we  enjoy eating french toast on the weekends, and we tried to find a dog toy because Keppy's squeaky grapefruit disappeared. Asking for these items has resulted in offers of soda water, puzzled looks, and disappointment. As far as we can tell, these things simply don't exist here. We haven't even tried asking for ziplock bags or wet wipes because there are no words. It's a different culture and some of the things we needed, we don't need anymore. 

The power of love

So often, when I ask someone about their language-learning journey, they reference love.  We bought some presents from a woman in Sao Paulo and when we asked about her English, she said she had gone to Florida with here parents as a teenager and had met a guy at Disney. They hit it off and had short but passionate romance that happened mostly via email and that got her started.

This week, someone having lunch at a Adrianna's overheard Carol and I talking and complemented our English. Turns out the guy is an American and a seasonal local who has spent the past 18 years on Armacao beach. We asked about his Portuguese and he said it wasn't that great for the first 16 years but that he had been dating a Brazilian for the past year and a half and suddenly he could listen in on conversations in Portuguese without having to try.  It's the power of love.

We have our own story. I was not interested at all in learning Portuguese when I met Carol.  In fact, when we started to realize that we shared a dream of living in a non-English speaking place and she mentioned Brazil, I vetoed it. I told her that I just couldn't with the language. I probably could with Spanish and maybe could with French but I couldn't even hear Portuguese and I wished I could, but just no.  She challenged me to at least try and as it turns out, I could and I can. I loved her, and she loved Portuguese, and we both love Brazil and now here we are in love with each other and learning more Portuguese every day and starting to listen in on the conversations of strangers. Its the power of love.