walking the streets

First weekend back in Rio. I meant to jump right into it and charge around to all the escolas, but, unfortunately - or fortunately, I guess - I have a writing job to do for NOAA (National Oceanographic & Atmospheric Admistration) from my laptop, due Monday. It's sure nice to be able to earn a little money while in Brazil, except that it means I actually have to work instead of gallivanting around all the time. But it's a good job, good work, that feels to me like it is important. (has to do with helping poor fisher people get a few more fish to eat, saving endangered sea turtles and all that warm fuzzy stuff.)

But I have made some time to walk the streets of my neighborhood and settle in. All the little aspects of Rio life are flooding back in around me, familiar and comforting. Even the annoying things feel familiar and comforting!

Things that let me know I am back in Rio....

- sudden rainstorms and the "oh yeah, I should ALWAYS have my umbrella with me"
- wonderful tropical smells (and occasional not-so-wonderful smells)
- my hair immediately puffing out into a dandelion-head of frizz, but not to worry, because there is an enormous shelf of anti-frizz hair oils and creams in every drugstore;
- and three drugstores on every block;
- the yelping cries from great kiskadees in the trees, and the squeaky chirps of masked water-tyrants zipping around on teh sidewalks (two of Rio's most common and friendly birds. Even if you never notice them, their calls will become part of the background "Rio sound" )
- packing away every sweater, jacket, and pair of long pants, knowing I will NEVER need them;
- the rickety gas water heater in my shower. It takes every North American visitor about 2 weeks to make their peace with the water heaters.
- three-dimensional keys;
- fans everywhere... falling asleep to the whir of the ceiling fan... monstrous jet-engine fans ventilating the subways;
- the mosaic sidewalks of little white bricks, lovely and quaint but with that slightly shabby Rio look, peppered with holes where the little bricks have gotten lost;
- the endless lines of street vendors, selling: Big glass boxes of plain and caramel popcorn; fried churros pumped full of sweet goo while-u-wait; wheelbarrows of fresh pineapples; piles of bananas; neat pyramidal stacks of mangos and papayas; beautiful cut flowers; tidy arrays of used books laid carefully out on a blanket; and racks and racks of pirated DVD's.
- the clumps of guys chattering at the tiny little neighborhood bars.
- breakfast of warm pao-de-queijo (little balls of cheese-bread) and strong sweet espresso coffee;
- the sense, everywhere, of how hard everybody is working. A bustle everywhere of endless activity, people working hard, moving fast, industrious, clever, entrepreneurial, aways looking for a new idea. Scrambling to get by, but giving it their all, every day.

It makes me happy to just to walk around through the streets and see it all again.

I'm dismayed and encouraged, simultaneously, by my Portuguese. Dismayed because my own speech seems to have stalled entirely - 8 months away has really pulled me backwards, and I have lost the little automatic phrases. But encouraged because for some reason my comprehension seems to be better. I can pretty easily follow the tv soaps now. And I'm hopeful because, this time for the first time, I am living with Brazilians instead of living alone.

Finally, an economy update: Rio ain't cheap any more! Continued local inflation combined with an all-time historic low exchange rate (just 2 reais to the dollar !!! yikes!!) have cut us gringos down to size. We're not rich here any more. Cost of living here is about halfway between Seattle and New York, and I no longer feel like I have any money at all to spare. US $1.25 for a little espresso coffee, $5 (!) for a bowl of chicken soup, $1.25 for to ride a bus, $12 to get into any club in Lapa - yes, those are in US dollars. Cabs are actually more expensive here than in New York. You have been warned. But it's still worth it - because I would rather be here than in the US.

Rio's endless cycle of urban violence continues. It's refreshingly peaceful where I live, but I watched the news last night and, though it was nice to find out I could understand everything, the news was a disturbing and grim list of unnecessary deaths. Saddest story of the day: a father was having a heart attack in one of the poorer areas, and his 19-year-old son went running out frantically to get a taxi to take his dad to the hospital. Police nearby saw him commandeering a taxi, thought he was robbing the taxi driver, and shot him in the head without a moment's hesitation. Just shot him dead. It happens all the time. He was just a pizza delivery boy. A little while later the father died en route to the hospital (but, fortunately I think, without having heard of his son's death.) There was the saddest little sentence about the mother's reaction when, at the hospital after her husband had just died, she was informed of her death of her only son. "Ela passou mal" was all it said - she became ill. No shit.