An American Family

MILF (Mother I Like to breastFeed)

2008-05-19T11:19:00.005-05:00

This weekend Maddie and I watched two videos on Youtube over and over again. The two videos that Maddie couldn’t get enough of are, La Teta and Breastfeeding Toddlers . She absolutely loves these and laughs with glee. After watching La Teta, she looked up at me and buried her little face into my bosom, her chubby legs draped over mine, with her little toes twined together. What a feeling, so warm, cozy and secure—just lovely.

Yes, she is two and yes, we are still breastfeeding. I’m writing this blog as a cathartic expression. Far too often, I find myself vexed about whether I should be still breastfeeding. I cringe when my mom asks, “are you still breasting feeding?” Or when my sister says, “you’ve got to stop that” or from my friend, “wont that rot her teeth?” What is it with American’s conception, or should I say, misconception of breastfeeding? While living in Brazil, not once did I feel out of place for breastfeeding Maddie in a public place, whether it was on a bus, or in the middle of a busy restaurant. The norm in Brazil is to breastfeed from 2 to 5 years. So, why is it that in “progressive” America breastfeeding past one year of age (which itself is a relatively new concept) is seen as needless, disgusting and detrimental? And how can we ever think that forumla or cow’s milk is better than mother’s milk?

Times have got to change people, and I mean cultural change on a mass scale. You might think, impossible! But as Kathy Dettwyler, anthropologist from Texas notes, cultural change can happen, we’ve seen it within the last 20 years with cigarette smoke. As the public was made aware, via a little help from the government, laws were put into place that prohibited smoking in restaurants, grocery stores, and planes. Massive change can happen, so why not with breastfeeding? Why should a woman be told to leave a building for breastfeeding her child?

What will it take for cultural change to occur? Maybe little steps at first, coming from mothers, and then from a larger scale, like the work Dr. Ann Kellams at University of Virginia Children’s hospital is doing to promote breastfeeding from day one of an infants life and to band infant formula from being in the take home gift bags given to new mothers. Only then, will the general public start to conceptualize breastfeeding as natural and normal.

My first step is to write this blog and put it out there for other women who are conditioned to think that in order to gain their “body” back they have to force their child to stop breastfeeding and feel that they have to substitute the feeling of security that comes from the mother-child bond with a “transitional toy” as soon as the child reaches one.

Finally, I end with a quote from Kathy Dettwyler :“Breastfeeding is more than just the transfer of nutrients from mother to child. Not only nutritionally, but immunologically, physically, cognitively, and emotionally, breastmilk is vastly superior to artificial infant feeding products, and breastfeeding is much more than just a way to feed a child, much more than just a "lifestyle choice." Women need to know about the advantages of breast milk and breastfeeding; they need to know that breast milk protects children against a variety of illnesses and parasites as long as they are ingesting it, and that an early diet of breast milk sets the stage for life-long health advantages through a strengthened immune system… They need to know that breast milk continues to be an important source of clean, cheap and convenient nutrition for their children as long as they are producing milk, and that breast milk can be a critical source of nutrients for a sick child…Women need to know that breastfeeding quiets a noisy or fussy child, relaxes an anxious child, comforts a sick, injured, or frightened child, and conveys unequivocally that the child is safe and loved. They need to know that a child who has the "safe haven" of her mother's arms is a secure, independent child, one who has the self-confidence to reach out and explore the world. Finally, women need to know that meeting their children's needs through breastfeeding, as long as children express those needs, is both normal and appropriate.”

"Marlo the party woman"

2008-05-13T09:42:00.002-05:00

"It was cool to hang at Wende's with 'Marlo the party woman' as opposed to 'Marlo the mom' (not that the two are opposed or mutually exclusive)."

This was how the email from my friend Adam started. He hit it right on, "Marlo the party woman" was out in full force on Friday night. Matthew took the kids home, leaving with a peck and a whisper,"have a great time, come home when ever you want". I was on my own, feeling great, and surrounded by highly intelligent people--all anthropologist & archaeologist--which was so exciting.

I had no idea what 2 hours without kids, 3 glasses of white wine, and conversations varying from Facebook to defining irony, could do for me. I've been smiling ever since and its Tuesday!!

Adam pointed out that the two--the party woman & the mom--weren't mutually exclusive. I believe that, in fact, i think for the mom to be at her best she needs to be a 'party woman' or just a woman--periodically feeling free to experience moments of life without being in the grip of worry for her little ducklings. This short escapade has made me a better mom, wife and woman.
Cheers!

Food Challenge

2008-01-22T16:15:00.000-05:00

This past week has been a challenge for me! And I have to admit, I’ve slipped up a few times. After hearing an interview on NPR from our (currently) favorite author, Michael Pollan, I vowed to not eat anything that has more than 5 ingredients or ingredients that I can’t pronounce. My coworker thinks I’m nuts and my mom thinks I’ve gone off the deep end (she obviously doesn’t know any vegans). After we donated our TV in September, and now this, I can only imagine what my parents are saying behind my back. They tried in vain to buy us a new TV for Christmas, so that “my kids can learn something”. Wow, is all I had to say to that comment. I mean, what can you say to that?

Back to food.
Since I’ve started a week & half ago, I’ve slipped up on pizza and chocolate cake at a kid’s birthday party. I mean, who in their right mind can pass up chocolate on chocolate cake with blinking dinosaurs! It’s amazing how hard and yet, easy it can be. I think our refrigerator is finally reflecting items that are simple. So, now its not so hard to go in and find something to munch. My new fav is plain whole yogurt (Stoneyfarm) with raw cashews and honey…yum

Life Back in America

2007-10-15T12:10:00.000-05:00

My life has changed, dramatically. I’ve been thrown back into the American mainstream, knocked on my keester, right smack back into my old life. I mean literally, back into our old house, back into my old position at work, back into my old desk, computer, right down to the my old coffee cup that they saved, “just in case”.
How do I feel about this? Pretty good, I guess. Actually, pretty pulled. I love being back in the “land of plenty”, but really miss the simple life. I have these whimsical daydreams about how my life was a few months ago—low stress, good food, great people, hanging out in the hammock, no work. But quickly, I realize you can’t live in America this way, unless you are independently wealthy, which I am not, but even if I were, I think you would really have to train yourself to not want all the latest greatest, gadgets, and try to live simply and eat simply. I imagine it’s harder than we think.

I’ve delayed writing a blog for two reasons; I’ve been in reverse culture shock, not sure exactly what to write and the second delay comes in the form of having two kids.

So, here I am back at the keyboard ready to write…I think. Here are a few things that shocked me once I de-boarded from my third and final airplane.
America is RICH! America is CLEAN! America is OBESE!

First off, if you complain that we have too many poor people in American, you don’t know the meaning of poor. I walked and talked with people who live off of meat bone soup because they are too poor to buy the meat that once fleshed out the bones; I saw women begging with their children on the streets; gave food to children who were homeless and parentless traveling in little gangs addicted to huffing glue from bottles. Americans are wealthy, even if our poor are wealthy.

Everything here in America is very clean--the streets, the houses, the yards, the stores, the public restrooms, even the dump! It’s nice to be able to wash my floors twice a week, instead of everyday. It’s nice to go for a run and not have to sidestep discarded animal bones, and, yes, it’s nice to have a paved road again. Gracie, my 3&1/2 year-old, after going to the potty at the airport asked where she was to put the toilet paper after wiping. I was happy to inform her that, “here in America, we can flush the toilet paper”.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I can lose a few pounds. But while living in Brazil I saw about 3 obese people and absolutely no obese children. I mentioned this to my pediatrician friend and he asked, “The poor weren’t obese?” Because we all know the correlations between low income and obesity, right? If not, check this out http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/01/040105071229.htm
Trying to eat the way we did in brazil—grass fed meats, fresh free-range corn-fed chickens and their eggs, local veggies—is really hitting us hard in the pocket book. The really healthy foods in America are very expensive. Sure, the high-fructose-corn-syrup products are cheap and in abundance, but I really don’t want to feed my kids that stuff, or eat it myself. Lately, I’ve been engrossed with Michael Pollan’s book, Omnivore’s Delima (2006). He explains why Americans are bigger and “stronger” than the majority of people inhabiting our world. If we follow our industrialized path to pudginess, like Pollan did in his book, we can easily see where America diverged from fresh to fabricated. What is so bad about fabricated I asked? We’ll everything we can buy cheaply is loaded with HFCS, and due to this cheap sugar source, we see the rise in larger portions of foodstuff. Ie: the supersized nation. Supersizing is a way for the big fastfood chains to make an easy buck. HFCS is so cheap it costs pennies to supersize an item, while to customer pays 30 or 40 cents more. Huge profits on a large scale. Therefore, American’s, on average, consume 500 more calories a day than they did two decades ago.

So, going back to Dr. Mark’s question, “the poor weren’t obese?”. If there are so many poor in the area of Brazil that we lived (approx. 80%), why was obesity absent?
I’m thinking this must be due to absence of cheap prefabricated foods and fast food restaurants. For my neighbors, a quick fast meal involved walking to the corner and purchasing a spit full of barbecued meat with a plate of rice and beans for R$2 (roughly a US dollar).

The weight problem for America is the only thing that really jumped out at me. It’s quite alarming when faced with creating good eating habits for my kids. It becomes difficult when you have limited time to prepare foods and shop. As my girlfriend says, and I'm sure she mimicks what many other mother's would say, "McNuggets are just sooo easy". Looking at her, I decided not to tell her that those little clusters of "easiness" are sprayed with butane (i.e. lighter fluid), to preserve "freshness"--ha, how the meaning of "fresh" has morphed. Bon appetite and as Gracie says, "napkins in your lapkins".

2007-07-14T18:56:00.000-05:00

Over the past 11 months I've spent time hanging out with Mateus at the Dona's house, talking and enjoying lunches. The amazingly delicious and simple foods that are served at the Dona's house exude the essence of Brazilian life. I've tried to guess what ingredients are used but have been stumped. So, I asked if I could hang out in the kitchen and learn how to prepare basic Brazilian foods.

This past week I've had the privilege of spending three days in the kitchen with Nelda the head chef, and Karen, her su chef, although neither one of them would call themselves chefs. But they are. Daily they feed between 10 and 25 people. Members of the church that come at times to work either at the church, the memorial or the Dona's house. Doing various chores. Yesterday, Dona Maria washed out the Daime jugs, Carmen cleaned and oiled the wood paneling in the kitchen, and Val did the daily laundry (which includes washing, hang drying and ironing everything, even the underwear!). Today, there were a number of men painting the outside of the house, getting it ready for the large party celebrating the Dona's 70 th birthday on Saturday. Often when I'm at the Dona's house I think of the saying "Many hands makes for light work". People at this church really work together.

Around 11AM everyone will stop and eat together. The children are permitted to eat before the Dona but everyone else has to wait for the Dona to get her lunch first. Supplies are often brought by members of the church, who drop off bags full of supplies--rice, beans, farina, tomato sauce, etc. Rice and beans are served with every lunch and I've heard people say that they haven't eaten if they haven't had rice and beans with their main meal. On a few occasions people have asked me if Americans eat rice and beans daily. I usually say, "si, teng arroz e fegioan, mas, nao todo dia". Which means, yes we have rice and beans but not every day. They just look at me strange, like we Americans don't eat properly. The look is usually accompanied with a shoulder shrug.

The first morning I was in the kitchen, we made stewed pork shoulder, carne moida (ground beef) with spaghetti, salada (cabbage, beet & tomato salad), farofa (ground up maxacada root), and of course, rice and beans. The latter is usually taken for granted. In many cultures the main subsistence dish is usually the sacred unspoken-the dish that is never talked about but expected to adorn every lunch table. And for me, the Americana, to learn how to make this sacred staple would be a little coup for me.

You might think, "how hard can it be to make beans?" Welp, "fejiao da Nelda" is quite the undertaking. It takes a good hour, give or take and can include any combination of, a whole beet, green onions, covie (a type of green), mild peppers, acorn squash pieces, dried beef chunks, chopped green beans, salt, and coloral. Coloral is an indigenous powder that is often used by the natives of the forest as body paint. But here in the city, it is used in almost everything. Especially, coating meat before it is fried up. It is rich in red color and really has no smell and a mild taste. I have grown to love it and have secured two large bags for the flight home.

After three days I have some really great traditional recipes and am eager to try them out on friends back in the states, especially Brazilian meatballs, which are outtasite. Look forward to seeing you all in a week!

The Unusual Fathers Day

2007-06-18T16:26:00.000-05:00

It started out like any other Fathers day. We planed a family picnic at the Horto, or Orchard. Matt said he wanted to go into the other part of the Horto to set up picnic. He had seen picnic tables in a clearing once and thought it would be a nice spot. Now, in previous posts I've written about the Horto, but never really discussed the "dark side" of this place. The Horto is broken up into two parts, one part consists of a running loop, playground, pull-up and sit-up stations and volleyball courts. This section is where we as a family usual hang out and play. The other part is what locals seem to view as the "dark part". This area contains a number of trails and bridges that wind through a thick forest area, and along side the river. I've scoffed at the notion that this part of the Horto is seedy because when I run through, around 6:30 AM, there is nothing suspicious, only fluttering butterflies. However, on this day, I stopped scoffing.
We had an awesome lunch of spaghetti with meat sauce, rice and beans and Sprite. I was feeling quite environmentally PC, because everything we used was glass, aluminum or cloth (barring the Sprite bottle), so everything that was packed in, packed out. It was an awesome day, hot but the shade of the palms and a slight cool breeze made the weather very comfortable. Gracie ran around, picking up sticks and leaves, pretending they were one thing or another. Maddie watched with glee and stumbled around after her older sis. Time came to pack up and head out, we chose to go out a different path. Gracie galloped ahead, her dress bouncing and her hair shining in the sun was a joyous image to behold.
We came to a clearing that transected another path. As we entered, I noted that it smelled like pee, but then my eye caught something dark in the grass. Maybe not pee, but rotting flesh? We moved in closer to see what was dead; for it was obvious it was dead by the flies. We came upon a sacrificial site. Two black chickens had been cut open and displayed quite neatly. One was placed on a clay bowl and the other on the grass next to it. The bowl looked as though it had corn meal, a piece of paper with something written on it and black & red candle wax, with the chicken displayed on top of it all. There were black and red candles burned down, positioned around the birds, some tobacco and a lid to Aguardant (a kind of Portuguese brandy) bottle. It smelled, but since it was a fresh sacrifice, it was tolerable. We filmed the scene extensively but were careful not to disturb the display. I figured that an Umbanda ritual had taken place the night before and one was best to not mess with any sorcery, good or bad.
Umbanda is a magic-type practice, some say a religion, that derives in large part from an African ancestry. People say you can use this magic for good or evil. As we were filming, a guy walked by so we took the opportunity to interview him. He said he had seen this type of thing before in the Horto. He called the site, despacho, which means to dispatch spirits after someone. He said the piece of paper probably had the name of the person who was the target of the despacho. He went on to explain, "when I see this kind of thing I go by saying the name of Jesus and sometimes I even kick them". Matt asked, "Do you feel implicated in the sorcery if you interfere with it? He responded, "If I don't say anything, then I feel something bad will happen to me. So maybe kicking it away is a good idea." He parted, and I noticed that the guy didn't kick this ritual site away. Which left me wondering why?
Gracie wanted to say goodbye to the birds, so we wished them farewell and went on our way. Matthew and I were like two kids, so excited to come across a scene of sorcery, something we’ve only read about in books. We’ve decided to look into this while we are still here, maybe talk with a sorceress, and maybe make a mini-documentary.

the scene, the tobacco is in the form of a cigar

the burned down candle

I'm pointing to the bird to give size perspective

This is a closeup of the bowl, paper, cornmeal, candle wax

Random Capoeira

2007-05-27T09:49:00.000-05:00

A quick note about today. We traveled downtown to the river for some R, R & beers. After getting off the bus, we heard drums and a slight sound of chanting. Matt thought it sounded like capoeira music. So we followed our ears to the municpal building a block down and found a group of people watching a round circle of dancers clapping, singing and playing instruments. In the middle were two guys dancing capoeira , amazing. It was like watching really awesome break dancers in unison. About every three minutes or so, other dancers would cut in for a continual in-and-out, circular movement of legs, arms, pelvises--bodies whirling around and around. Gracie's eyes were huge (and so were mine!) and fixed on the group. As we walked away she said she wanted to take that dance class. I said, "me too".
No pictures, our camera is on the fritz, but Matt brought his sound recording equipment. Here is a sound clip of today.

Exploring Daime & Pregnancy

2007-05-12T10:50:00.000-05:00

Friday morning, we went out to the home of Raimunda (hi-munda) and Jose (jo-ze). They are a young couple who have a three-month-old son, Lucas. Jose is a pilot and Raimunda is a teacher. They belong to a splinter church that is literally a street away from the Dona’s church (see 9/19 post). This sect splintered off during the 1980s when the Dona started to take control of the church.

Jose picked us up in his car that resembled a Volkswagen Thing--a square, tin box. It had that familiar Volkswagen smell about it, large bench seat in the back with no seatbelts. Seatbelt laws in Brazil or at least Rio Branco are lax. No one uses car seats for kids, they are generally held in the lap, usually in the backseat. We motored along the highway out toward their home, which is on the outskirts of the main town. We turned right onto a dirt, heavily riveted road. I tried to hold onto both kids, while keeping my eyes fixed on the road ahead of us to keep from getting car sick. We rocked back-n-forth through the rough terrain, at one point, I felt as though we were sideways, teetering on two wheels.

Finally, we arrived at their home. A nice place, large in fact, with an open veranda that wrapped the entire house. We walked through the car port into the back area which was floored with beautiful Amazonian wood, rich hues of dark browns. The back porch was equipped with a bathroom, dining area, stove, sink and sitting area. The secratario was making a lunch of fried fish, rice, beans, meatballs, salad, and fardho (ground up manioc root fried up with bacon and butter, usually people dip a bite of meat in it). The smells were mixed with fish and vegetation from the open jungle area that their house butts up against. I periodically looked for monkeys, to no avail.

The sitting area was built of five hardwood chairs facing each other around a coffee table. A rede or hammock swung in the background, which was good because Maddie was due for her morning nap and will only sleep in a rede (she‘s a jungle baby in so many ways).

We sat and talked awhile and at first lull, I asked Raimunda if she had taken Daime during her pregnancy. She said she had, but followed the regiment that the founding Mestre advised. I immediately envisioned an old hand-written document discussing how pregnant women should use Daime, my excitement could hardly be contained. A tangible morsel of field data!

What little understanding I have accumulated is that a smaller amount of the tea is given because the woman is more “open to the divine realm” while pregnant. I went on to ask Raimunda , “Did you tell your doctor about drinking Daime?” She said no, that she only spoke with her Mestre at the church. To me , implicit in her decision not to tell her physician are so many issues--for instance; the status of the doctor/patient relationship. The muted patient voice in fear of social retribution. How exactly is Daime construed by the public and medical establishment in Rio Branco? Could taking Daime during pregnancy be seen as negligent and abusive to her baby?

There is so much here for me to study, and just as I feel confident in my language skills we are about to leave. I guess I’ll have to go back for that PhD to get the opportunity to follow-up on these themes. But I’m here now, and I planning on speaking with Raimunda‘s Mestre. More to come…

The Battle for the Souls

2007-04-28T10:11:00.000-05:00

In our neighborhood, Novo Horizonate, we have at least 10 churches tucked into, what seems like, every nook and cranny. We’ve noticed many had sprung up between houses on residential streets, beside little mercardos, well, just about everywhere in town. So, needlesstosay, the area of Brazil that we find ourselves, Acre, is steeped in religion. And the people aren’t afraid to let you know all about their beliefs.

We met, Pia, short for Olympia, so is Pilipino. She came to Brazil twelve years ago as a new bride married through the religion of Divine Principle under the Reverend Sun Myung Moon. This religion is most famous for the mass marriages that you’ve seen on Ripley’s Believe or Not, or some show like that. I don’t believe she had met her husband or had ever been to Brazil before she was married. We ran into her on the street and since she spoke English she was eager to talk with us. I don’t remember telling her where we lived, but there she was one day, standing outside our house clapping her hands and yelling “Anyone home?”. She dropped of her copy of Divine Principles for us to read. This wasn’t so bad, I mean we are used to the Mormons stopping by in the States. But when she showed up again a week later at an inconvenient time to discuss what I had read, I felt a bit put off. She went on in great detail about the troubles that our world faces today and how is it America‘s “duty and responsibility“ to help. As politely as I could, with a half-baked smile, holding Maddie bare butt on my hip, I declined her offer to come in my house.

Next, is Valjir of the Catholic faith. He owns the Mercado across the street from our house. He is part Italian so he tries to speak Italian, which is pretty much Portuguese with an Italian accent. Poor Matt, I usually send him over to get what ever we need, so he gets wrangled into hearing about the Bible. Today is was quotes from the last supper, where Jesus asks the disciples to eat his flesh. Matthew was left with an uneasy feeling, thinking thoughts of cannibalism! He told me this and we laughed.

And then there are the Jehovah Witness’ who come, brief case and bible in hand. They are nice enough, however, when the woman, Lache, came by my default response, “No folo Portuguese” didn’t work, I felt intruded upon. She started in “Goot Morgin”, and walked pass me into my courtyard. At that moment, when I knew she was going to try and talk to me in English, I called for Matthew. He likes to talk to the JW & the Mormons, unlike me, who shuts the blinds and locks the front door at first street sighting.

And finally, Thiago (che-a-go), a young kid that Matthew teaches English to twice a week. He follows Benny Hinn (even has Hinn’s phone number programmed in his cell) of the Evangelical religion and wears a bright hat that reads, “JESUS”. He shared with us a movie called “Left Behind” starring Kirk Camron (remember that guy?). It was a horribly-cheesy movie--don‘t rent it. He convinced Matthew to go with him to a study group. Matthew learned that at this church a member receives merit points for converting people to this faith. So, Thiago would be among the first to be taken during the “Rapture“ if he converts a whole family. I like Thiago but I don‘t think it will by our family that gets him on the first shuttle.

For me, I’m happy to be apart of the non-conforming Unitarian Universalist tradition. Matthew has become a member of the religion of the Dona that he studies and for the kids, well, we are planning on baptizing Maddie at the Dona’s church in June, and Grace was baptized in the UU tradition, so they will be of mixed traditions, just like us.

The Dona's

2007-04-23T10:27:00.000-05:00

This morning at 6:15, my watch alarm woke me up. The morning was overcast, rainy, and a bit chilly. I sat up, stroked Maddie’s hair, who lay next to me in our large, but not quite large enough bed. I thumb through my running clothes that I diligently placed at the end of my bed, so there would be no excuse not to go. After a long pee, hit on my asthma inhaler, and quick teeth brushing, I’m out of the A/C and into the humidity. I’ve decided to wear a long sleeve t-shirt, which I realize a few minutes into my route, I probably should have chosen the short sleeve.

The rain is light and feels nice hitting my face. When I reach the main road of my route, there is a virtual sea of bikes and walkers, going to work or school, no doubt. Men with lawn cutters strapped to their backs, whole families migrating down the hill quickly whiz by me. No matter how many times I see this, I‘m still amazed at the site of four people on one bike. There are young kids in their school uniforms, secretarios or house maids, walking or riding bikes. Known by their stereotypical clothing of either Daisy-Duke shorts or short skirts and little tops, similar to sport bras, leaving a full mid-drift view.

Our “friends” shops are open, have been for an hour or so. The Sobrino Mercardo, Seo Beto the butcher, the “tire guy”(we don‘t know his name yet!), and the bakery. I wave to everyone and jog on down the hill, side stepping potholes and meat bones that have been discarded over night. There is a slow burning pile of trash that has been smoldering since the night before. This is one smell I will be glad to be rid of. Despite the city’s efforts to cut down on trash burning by having pick-up three times a week, people pile their daily trash up in a corner of their yard and burn it every night.

As I pass people, I can’t help but notice the many different types of faces. For me, its very difficult to discern where people are from. I saw a woman, light skinned, narrow nose, with light eyes, that I swore was American, or maybe German, but no, she was Brazilian. I know this because while running by I usually try to make eye contact and say “hello”, if there is no response this usually means they are local. The foot traffic I run pass are dark-skinned with dark hair, which should come as no surprise, but what was surprising to me is that once I run through the Horto, or Orchard gates, the skin tone becomes noticeable lighter. In the mornings, there are predominately middle-aged women, who I call, “The Dona’s”. I call them this because I assume they are married to wealthy men and have secretarios at home cleaning and getting lunch ready.

Finishing up a mile at the Horto, I break before running the last mile, which is all uphill. I start doing my bicep & tricep pushes, and I see The Dona’s come striding by in their lycra one-piececolor- coordinated outfits, we stare at each other. I’m noticing how light their skin color is compared to the group of day laborers behind them, and they, perhaps, are noticing my skin color, unmistakably foreign. Or maybe they are just critiquing my decisively unattractive tattered surfer shorts, wife-beater T-shirt and baseball hat.

Update

2007-04-06T17:06:00.000-05:00

Its raining and the mosquitoes are biting. I'm pretty used to both now. At any given time I have at least four bites on my body. Usually, my ass because when I get up to breastfeed Maddie, for her 3 AM snack, I think my butt sticks out of the mosquito netting. So, I haven't written in awhile. I've been working on integrating one of my first letters with a friend of mine's letter. Her name is Ophelia and she has moved to Cuba with her husband and two-year-old daughter, Lucy. We promised to write corresponding letters to each other, but it took them a bit longer to get into the "field" due to visa issues. She has finally written her first letter, which is amazing! So, I've been going back over my first letters and integrated them with hers, which is a fun exercise.

I realize that when I write, at times, it appears that I am down in the dumps, ready to take Prozac or some variety of pharmaceutical. This is not the case. Ever since I was a kid I can remember running to the bathroom with pen and paper, sitting on the pot, and writing like crazy about how pissed off I was at my brother or sister, how unfair life was and plots of great revenge. I wish I would have saved those reams of prose, but in fact, I threw them away right after writing them. So, writing for me is a release. I know life is ever shifting, ever changing, and that no matter how stressful the moment is; it is truly, only a moment in time—fleeting.

Turning now to life pre-Pascua (Easter). Since Brazil is about 90% catholic, Pascua is a huge deal here. It starts on Thursday, everything is closed through Sunday. People start to party on Thursday night, which goes until the wee hours of Friday morning. An evangelist church down the street is starting a prayer vigil that will go from Friday night through Sunday morning. The Catholic Church on the corner is reenacting Jesus' "walk", by gathering at 4AM on Sunday morning and walking down to the center of town and back for church services at 7:30. And Matthew's church, yes, he became fardado, celebrated last night. The service started at 6 PM and went until 7 AM. He told me all the hymns and prayers that they said, which I figured, amounted to more prayers than I have done in my entire life! They sung some 300 hymns which were punctuated, here and there, by Our Fathers, Hail Mary's, and fireworks (of course). We are planning on returning to my roots this year and attending the Catholic Church on the corner for Pascua mass. My mom sent the girls matching dresses, which really sends me back to childhood, when she dressed my sister and I alike.

Boa Pascua a todos!

My Motherhood

2007-03-24T09:15:00.000-05:00

Before I left,
Things seemed so Ideal,
Stay at home mom, two girls,
Living in Brasil

Its real alright,
Moments are good, moments are great,
Moments just are…
Moments burn bright,
First crawls, first teeth, first steps,
Breastfeeding throughout the night.

Ideal, real, right, bright
Words falling on trembling lips
Trapped, smothered,
Coming to terms with motherhoods grips.

Before I left,
I couldn’t wait to be free,
Free of work, TV, the news, the war.
I couldn’t wait to be free,
To stay at home, to just be me.

Then I left,
Two flights, two days,
Traveling with two babes.
My husband there,
But mom is all they see,
Comforting arms, breasts of milk.
Yes, I’m free to be me.

Where is “me”?
Lost in the smell of stale milk,
Desitin and pee.
Lost in the simple tasks of
cleaning butts and spit-ups.
Lost in motherhood.

Before I left,
I read all I could,
Virtues from stay at home moms.
Before I left,
I couldn’t see enough
To read their subtext.

Crying, clinging, pinching, screaming,
Cooking, scrubbing, counting 1-2-3
Kisses to hubby who’s off to work,
Oh, to be free.

No car, no TV, no escape from reality.
Humid air in my lungs, hot nights, dirt roads,
And foreign tongues.

I escape to the toilet,
A delicious moment to myself.
The New Yorker I quickly grab from the shelf,
First line of Talk of the Town,
And four eyes are staring me down.
The infant between my legs,
The toddler shouting, where’s my eggs!
Oh to be free, Oh to be me.

Moments are good, moments are great,
Moments just are…
Moments burn bright,
Milk teeth smiling, lips vigorously sucking,
Eyes shining in the night.

Motherhood: childhood relived.
Motherhood: I so misunderstood.

Great, Bright, smiles in the night.
Words falling on smiling lips,
Trapped, smothered,
Coming to terms with motherhoods grips.

Hope in Healing

2007-03-13T09:39:00.000-05:00

When Matthew ran across the street to get fabric softener from the Mercado, he noticed a cup full of something writhing in a cup. The Mercado owner, Valdir, held up the cup and Matthew took a closer look. “The first thing I saw was red peanuts pods and then black beetles swarming the nuts.” Matthew reported to me. They were small, pea-sized, beetles, (ulomoides dermestoides) munching on peanuts. “It’s a remedy“, Valdir explained, “throw seven in the blender with Nescau (powdered chocolate ) and it will cure asthma”. You can’t buy these “Magic Beetles”, they have to be given to you in order for their magic to work. After doing a simple Google search I found that the beetle’s excretions are said to strengthen body defenses against cancer, asthma, diabetes and even AIDS, as well as, increase sex drive. This sounds too good to be true, but, in a region where money is scarce, and trips to the doctor are even scarcer, hope looms large.

In 2003 Wall Street Journal writer, Matt Moffett, traveled down to Argentina to see about this, as he puts it, “Beetlemania“. He found testimony after testimony regarding the magical properties of these tiny six legged creatures. He traveled to the northern city of Parana where he heard of a church that was distributing the beetles to its parishioners. Pastor Antonio Orlando Mattiassi, of the Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, became interested in the beetle in 2001 after hearing about a man cured of esophageal cancer. The church bulletin noted the beetles as “a gift from God…especially for the poorest who can’t afford expensive medicines”. Here in Rio Branco, magical forces are often said to be behind ailments and remedies to cure such ailments are often given out freely. I’ve been told on numerous occasions that we have contracted “evil eye” from jealous onlookers. And after battling cold after cold, the girls and I have taken to wearing a red ribbon around our wrists to ward off this evil.

As many of you know, or don’t know, I suffer from mild asthma. So when remedies are presented I am eager to be unchained from my inhalers once and for all. I’m not really excited about the prospect of munching these little critters, especially when I’m supposed to munch about a dozen or so a day ( some eat as many as 70 a day!). But hey, I am living in the Amazon right? That guarantees eating a beetle or two or ten.

Lost Loves & Life Lessons

2007-02-21T21:43:00.000-05:00

Just about everyone over a certain age will find themselves taking on aspects of their parent, usually corresponding to gender. For me, I just couldn’t see it, (even though my husband periodically responds to me “okay, Camille”). That is, until I had to grieve lost loves this past month did I hear Camille’s voice ring out, “Can’t I have anything nice?”

First Grief: My beloved multi-colored sarong. I know, a sarong, how emotionally attached can I really be, but you don’t understand what special meaning I have imbued on this 6 x 6 piece of cotton fabric. Its trekked the globe with me acting as bath towel, beach wrap, beach towel, dress, skirt, head wrap, privacy boarder(in hostels), blanket, sheet, etc. I’ve labored wearing it, twice, and now it’s traveled to Brazil.

The other morning after wearing my beloved, I hung it up on a spare nail that was in the doorway of the bathroom. About an hour later, my 3-year-old came into the kitchen and asked for some glue to “fix it”. I said, “fix what?”, thinking of the various little toys that litter the floor these days. I followed her into the bedroom where she stopped and held her hand out like Vanna White and said, “see what happened.” There was my sarong, shredded down the middle and up one side. She said something about trying to swing on it like Tarzan. Her words of explanation fell on numb ears and my eyes welled with tears as I unhooked the now tattered piece of cloth. I took it to Matt and buried my face in it and sobbed. He just patted my back in support and this is when I heard my mom’s voice ring out, “can’t I have anything nice?”

Second Grief: About two weeks later, I saw my link to the familiar, my escape, my virtual-friend-my laptop, lying on the floor and again, my 3-year-old, finger in mouth, one foot pigeon-toed, huge green eyes wide, murmuring an explanation. Her explanation drowned out by my racing heart as I picked it up and placed it on the table. We slowly opened the screen up and turned it on. I was praying it wasn’t broken, but alas as it booted up, the screen had a beautiful crack from the left corner down to the right. Only have the screen was visible. My stomach turned and my mouth went dry. All my writing, all my pictures were in this square piece of metal and plastic. I turned and looked at Grace, and I opened my mouth, and out poured Camille’s voice, “can’t I have anything nice?!!!”

So, on this wet, rainy Wednesday, pen to paper, I’m realizing what a terrible speller I am. I’m realizing how attached I am to material objects. I’m realizing that I do not practice what I preach. There are many good things about having kids, they seem to be teaching me lessons in life that I didn’t even know I needed to learn. And it’s hard to come to terms with imperfections in ones personality. I know I should make the most out of these two events and how I’ve handled them, I know I should glean what I can to become a better person and parent. But, as I sit here, pen to paper, I find myself not reflecting on how to be less attached to material objects but desperately missing the spell check function.

The Diet

2007-02-11T00:45:00.000-05:00

I’m writing this entry out of curiosity and frustration. The church that Matthew is studying adheres to a strict diet. If you’ve been reading my blogs, you are aware of “the diet“. Before drinking Daime, you must be “prepared”. The diet consists of no alcohol or sex three days before and three days after drinking Daime. Now, the question that come to my mind is; why no sex?? I can understand the alcohol, but sex? Hear me out here. It can get down right ridiculous, take this month for example. There is a hinario, this is a session where the members wear their ornate white uniforms and dance and sign until the wee hours of the morning (this work will go until 2AM). So that means members have been on the diet since the 7th of February, the work is on the 10th, so they will be on the diet until the 13th. But, on the 15th is the bi-monthly concentration session. So, the diet will last from the 7th until the 19th. Hence the frustrtation part. So, if you are a couple wanting to conceive a child and are ovulating between the 7th and 19th you’re screwed (pun intended). Does the diet work to regulate births?

Do members really stick to it? Asking around we hear people say things like, “she knows if you haven’t just by looking at you”. She referring to The Dona. What power this woman has. But then we’ve also gone to churrascos (bbq’s) where we’ve seen members hanging out in the back drinking during the diet time. So, there is some dissent from the Dona’s power. Its is interesting to note that all the other Ayahuasca churches in the area have abandoned the diet. Maybe by keeping the diet, the Dona sets her church apart from all other churches as the original church… hum. There has got to be some reason that the diet endures, I’ll keep sleuthing.

The Making of Ayahuasca

2007-01-24T16:38:00.000-05:00

This story is a recounting of an event that I personally was not privy to, because you must be invited. However, Matthew was invited and explained everything in great detail. I’m not sure if Matthew is going to write about this on his blog, but I felt I should since I talk about Ayahuasca quite often.

According to church rules, in order to attend the making of Ayahuasca, you must follow a strict diet; no sex or alcohol three days prior to the work and three days after. During the work you must only eat macaxeira, cooked manioc root (like a potato type product that is the main subsistence for the indigenous tribes that live further into the jungle), and drink either water or Ayahuasca. During the work, which takes place in a building close to the church structure, hymns are either sung or recorded hymns are played.

First, the vine, Jagube (Banisteria caapi), is gathered, either locally or some distance out of town. It is cut into small sections and placed next to a piece of tree trunk, which acts like a table. There are six tree trunk tables with small stools all lined up on one side of the open walled structure. There are large wooden mallets resting on the dirt floor. The men (women were absent from this work, however I suspect that they were the ones who cooked the macaxeira…) take their places and begin to pound in rhythm to the music. From what I’ve heard (Matt made sound recordings) it sounds hypnotic. Once a section of vine is pounded out thin, it is tossed into the middle of the room, where a person will come along ever so often and gather them up. They are then taken to the cooking room, where a large stone oven is surging with flames. There are three large holes on top of the oven, this is where the large vats will cook for hours.

Once there is a good amount of pounded Jagube, the cook will layer a large vat with Jagube vine, and folha (Psychortia viridis leaves); these layers will be built up, one layer after another, until they reach just about half the vat. Water is then added and the mixture will be left to cook with a periodic stirring until the liquid is a warm amber-brown color. Once this color is achieved, the liquid is poured through a large sieve. The cooked vine and leaves are toss out and the liquid is added to another vat that has fresh vines and leaves for another long cooking period. This makes the tea a nice robust dark honey brown color. Once the tea is cooled it is then poured into gallon containers and taken to a storage area to await the next concentration or hinario. The tea, prepared in a ritualized place and process, has been prayed over and made according to the rules of the church, it is no longer considered Ayahuasca, but now, goes under the name Daime.

Comments

2007-01-15T09:04:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone,
I just realized that the comment function was set to private, so no one could leave comments! I thought I had no readers! I've changed this so, please comment freely! You don't have to be a member to leave them.
Thanks for tuning in,
Mar

Life in the City

2007-01-10T11:02:00.000-05:00

I have become pretty comfortable with my neighborhood, taking daily walks and runs has made the unfamiliar commonplace. I’ve relatively stopped comparing everything to the States and started to enjoy life in situ. But this walk would send those feelings of non-comparison and comfort fleeing.

It was to be our typical walk to the orchard. We got the girls packed up in the dual stroller, and made sure all the appropriate items were aboard--water sippy, toys, blanket, and some cash. But as we turned the corner onto the main road, Getulio Vargas, the hairs on the back of my neck rose. We were met by military police armed with AK assault weapons. My knee-jerk reaction was to turn around and run back home, especially since we‘d been discussing the situation in Iraq were people are shot on the spot for being Sunni. But Matthew assured me that this was routine procedure, and that the military, the only official form of police protection in Rio Branco, often stage these “blitzes” to check Ids and for drugs. It was a strange feeling to see the road blocked off by stern-faced persons dressed in dark-green uniforms, dark sunglasses, and berets, adorned with machine guns. They were randomly pulling over cars and searching the occupants. My heart was racing and I remember feeling like I really didn‘t want to go through this area. But Matt said, “really Mar, they are not interested in us”. I felt relatively assured but couldn’t help but feel a twinge of skepticism as I looked at Matt puffing on his hand-rolled Indian tobacco cigarette.

We kept moving toward the blitz. Since the rains have come, the roads are in piss-poor condition; erosion, poor soil, and poor construction have left a portion of one of the four lanes with a 3-foot deep trench in the middle, and the sidewalks literally treacherous in some areas. This forces us to walk the stroller in the bike lane, a four foot lane that flanks either side of the street (at 5:30PM these lanes are so busy they, by far, out number vehicles on the road, and many bikes overflow into the car lanes). As we approached the core of action, I tried to appear invisible as we strode by two armed men. But looking back at the photo Matt snapped of me, there was no WAY I could appear invisible. I have Americana written all over me. I saw out the corner of my eye, one man standing spread eagle while a policeman padded him down. I didn’t want to stare or make eye contact with anyone., for fear they would pull me over.

Once passed, I swiftly turned back to watch in amazement and disbelief and relief that we were on the other side. I couldn’t imagine this occurring in the States. But Matt reminded me of “check points”, where cars are funneled through a police check point to see if alcohol could be detected. So now I’m back comparing Brazil to the US. Instead of appreciating all that’s around me for its difference, I hold it up to the US. For me, it’s a constant struggle. I could pretend to rise above this tedious practice of comparison, and do as taught in all those Anthropology courses, to be open and nonjudgmental. But it’s the American-cultural-condition to compare, right? Are we not raised to compare? “who is tallest in the class?“ Who has read the most books, sold the most whatever!“ Its not right, but there it is. We can argue all you want about this, but try to visit another country, another neighborhood, shoot, a different grocery store, and try not to compare it to what you know. Impossible! But still…here I am…struggling to rise above the condition my condition is in.

Bringing “Fire” to the People

2007-01-04T15:02:00.000-05:00

Awe, the holidays are over. Its seems everyone took a holiday down here, even my muse. I haven’t had the gumption to write in quite awhile. But after witnessing an event so incredible, my muse found her place again on my shoulder and here we are, writing…

Before you set out on your journey, whether it be to the store, on a hike, or cross country, you just never know what exactly you may need on your jaunt. Well after being here in Brazil for five months now, it has been really surprising to me that you cannot find a can opener, other than the janky camping type. You know, the kind that is made out of one piece of metal with a hook and point on one side. It takes me about half-an-hour to open the one thing my 3-year-old can’t live without, “wet peaches” or canned peaches to the rest of us.

When Matt’s mom asked us what we would like her to bring down, the first thing out of my mouth was “CAN OPENER“. People down here have never seen a can opener of the type that we have in the States. We had her bring down three. One for us, and one each for Cosmo and Jair; our two friends that made it possible for us to gain entrance into the country for research. We gave Cosmo his at Christmas and the first thing he said was “what is this thing?”. We laughed and explained it was the latest in can openers, the kind that leaves the edges dull. He was happy, but a little perplexed by the newfangled thingamabob.

A few days later, Cosmo invited us and a few other guests over for moqueca de peixe (moo-KAY-ka duh PAY-shuh), a Brazilian fish stew with coconut milk. Unbeknownst to us, among the other guests, was the Dona of the church that Matthew is studying. It was interesting to interact with her at a location quite removed from t he church. I think this gave Matthew an opportunity to causally chat with her, a nice added dimension to their relationship.
At one point during the gathering Cosmo invited a few of the women over to the table to help open a few cans. He pulled out his can opener and they stared at it. They leaned over on the table, resting their jaws in their hands and watched as one woman picked it up and gave it a once over. She held it in one hand and said, “what is this?” “A can opener” Cosmo said proudly. He showed her how to open it up and hook it onto the edge of the can. They all watched, intensely. She started to turn the crank. She kept on turning it, around and around, before Matt chimed in to stop and take off the top. They all looked in disbelief, as the Dona, who was watching, carefully poked at the top, then poked again a little harder. The top lifted up on one side and they all “oooed” and “aweeed“, and laughed and clapped. I felt like I was watching them discover fire. They all quickly looked for something else to open. It was quite amazing to watch. A first, you hardly ever get to see “firsts” in this world anymore. I suspect as time goes on and the world gets “smaller” there will be fewer and fewer to witness. The Dona looked at Matthew in surprise and delight. I would have never thought that a can opener could open more than cans, but it looks as if its opened a new door for Matt.

Needlesstosay, we have an order for more can openers to be shipped down from the land of plenty.

Jair and family trying out their new can opener

Field Update

2006-12-10T17:04:00.000-05:00

I have this overwhelming feeling of doom. Not sure why, at times I feel like I'm one of the women in the Feminine Mystique—valium satiated housewife. However, I'm not on anything, but I do fantasize about having a cocktail once all I have to do is done, but it never is… weird. This is what I asked for, right? To be SAHM (stay at home mom)?? Well, I guess I romanticized the hell out of that notion. I wish, "I could just tear it all down", this feeling I mean (quoting Tim Bluhm, who I'm listening to right now).

Before we left I thought I would be doing more research, but the language barrier is very intimidating for me. I see pregnant women at the church ingesting ayahuasca, and want so bad to ask them questions, but I shrink away once I walk up to them. Instead, I smile and walk on past… Matthew has offered to give informal lessons at home. I think I will take him up on. His research is coming along great. He's very busy. Hey, it just occurred to me that I may be jealous. He's one more step to getting done with his Phd and doing it on something that he is passionate about--Lucky guy. And I'm just being a mom…with the ideas of an anthropologist, but pushing a broom instead of my recorder and pen…

Okay, life can't be all that bad… I think the flies and ants have me down. Since the rains have come we have unexpected houseguests. Winged things, and creepy crawlers are all the rage down here. And just in time for Maddie to start crawling and doing little taste experiments!

Anyohw, Matt had to get some things at the store, so we all went. I hoped this would raise my spirits a bit. It did, somewhat. Maybe I need to go on a run…that always releases some happy endorphins—I wish we were near the ocean… Here are some snaps I took that I thought were interesting scenes. Dig it.

pics

2006-12-10T16:53:00.000-05:00

Supergreen vegetation
Muddy roads leading back to our house
the corner store where i buy most our food
Chickens in the Que (notice the guy is bbqing chickens!)

Things That Are Good to Know

2006-11-29T15:23:00.000-05:00

Hotel vs. Motel
A few things of note before traveling to Brazil. First is the difference between a Hotel and Motel. A hotel is where you will want to stay, for a night or week or what have you. As opposed to a Motel, which in Brazil is universally known as a rent-by-the hour type of establishment, if you get my drift. They are usually housed in modest buildings set off the street, very discreet. You would probably miss them entirely, if not looking for one. We have one on the main drag by our house. Its aptly named the OK Motel, so you don’t have to worry about feeling guilty because there its “OK to have an affair”. I’ve only seen one truck speed out of the driveway and I’ve never seen anyone leave it. Except, today I saw a guy with his shorts hanging off his hips, as is all the fashion here among the youth, run from the driveway and cross the street to where I was walking. As he strode by he looked at me, winked and smiled, like I knew why he was there. It was a perverse encounter.

Thumbs Up vs. Okay Sign

Using the thumbs up hand gesture is the way to go in Brazil. People use it here as we use the wave in the States. I usually use it as a response to people staring at me; I smile and say "Oi", with a vigorous thumbs up. One thing that you should never do is to lift your hand in the OK gesture, with your thumb and index finger making a circle. This is equivalent to giving someone the bird in Brazil. I’ve only done this once to my friend Cosmo at dinner…oops! Thankfully, he’s got a good sense of humor.

Don’t Flush the Paper Down

My whole life I’ve been taught to flush the toilet paper down. But oh no, not here in Brazil. No one flushes TP down, they throw it away in the little waste basket. Which doesn’t make for pleasant experience when using a public restroom. They do equip toilets with a nice sprayer so you can get that “oh so fresh feeling” every time you go. But drying off is another mess because the single-ply TP disintegrates as soon as it makes contact with water. So I don’t use these that often. We did manage to find two-ply TP at a store not too far from here. Yes, we’ve stocked up.

Don’t touch that Shower Head
One thing I had to learn quickly was not to touch the shower heads. You see, they are electric! Yes, that’s right electric. That is how we get hot showers. You have to remember that once you turn on the electric switch of heat up your water, you cannot not adjust the temperature on the shower head because you’ll get shocked. Pure genius in this invention (sarcastic tone). I’m pretty shocked that its caught on, just about every middle class family home has one.

Make Time for Shopping

If you are in the mood for some shopping, make sure you got plenty of time and patience. Once you have finally figured out what you would like to purchase, you give it to a salesperson who writes up a ticket for it. That means, a hand written itemized list of all your items and amount. Then you take the ticket to another counter where you wait in line to pay for the items. Then you take the receipt back to the salesperson that you gave your merchandise to and show them the receipt, then finally you can go. These are just a few things that I can think of to let you know what to look forward to when you travel down to Brazil.

Rainy Season

2006-11-20T15:09:00.000-05:00

Today Grace gave me one of those hugs, you know, the kind where you bury your face into her hair and take a deep breath, where flashes of her babyhood run through your mind. It left me staggering back to washing the dishes with a drunk smile. Moments like these make up my daily life. A smattering of kisses and leg hugs in between washing the floor, or cleaning the bathroom or hanging up clothes.

The day-to-day routines have begun to grind a rut into the tile floors of the house. Its comforting. The other day we made Thanksgiving turkeys by tracing our hands and coloring them in traditional orange and brown--well Gracie’s is a psychedelic swirl of all the colors. I hung them up with pride, thinking, I can’t believe that its November, it feels like I’ve entered into a time warp where its continually August, hot and humid. It hit 90 degrees yesterday and the humidity was so thick you felt like you were walking in a cloud. Everyone knew the rain was coming but when…

Its rainy season here and the mud stuck to our shoes can prove it. Last night around 5 PM we decided to take a walk down to the nature preserve at the bottom of the hill. We started to walk down there with the girls loaded up in the stroller, Matthew threw the umbrella in just in case. About half way down we could see a massive rain cloud, about the size of Texas moving toward us. At the bottom of the hill, we could see the curtain of rain moving slowly up. As we sped down the hill, we questioned whether we should be doing this, but then, its been so hot all day, a little cooling down was in order. A light sprinkle started and then a torrent of downpours, coming in, sheet after sheet. Matt fumbled with the umbrella and put it over the entire stroller. The girls were dry, but we were soaked. We looked at the each other and laughed, enjoying the freedom of feeling the rain dance over our bodies. I looked back up the hill and there were a bunch of kids running into the middle of the street and laying in the newly formed river gushing downstream. The innocence of youth.

We made it to the preserve and trudged the stroller across the front area to a road that led out to a large palapa that over looked a dry lake. The mud was viscous and stuck to the stroller wheels, Matthew was wearing flip-flops and at the time I thought was a poor shoe choice, but given his short clean up time once we got home, I reconsidered as I scrubbed my running shoes. We essentially carried the stroller out to the palapa and we waited for the rain to stop. However, as we waited we feared that it may get dark before the rain ceased and we didn’t have our head lamps. I couldn’t bare the thought of dragging the girls across that road, which was becoming smaller and smaller as it melted into the side of the lake bed, in pitch darkness.

After a few minutes of heated debate on whether we should go or not, Maddie started to fuss. Great timing, kids always have the best timing. I reached down to give her a kiss and she latched onto my bottom lip and started sucking vigorously! I lifted up my shirt and latched her on my teat, grabbed the umbrella and yelled to Matt, “I’m crossing”. I starting walking her across the mud road, securing the umbrella close to us. I felt confident I wouldn’t fall. However, halfway through I became less confident when my foot slipped out and I swaggered, crossing leg over leg, until I finally got my balance. I looked down at Maddie, surely she was a scared as I, but she hadn’t missed a suck.

We made it across without falling into the lake and waited for Matthew and Gracie to do the same. I looked into the graying night, and waited. I started to get a bit worried, but then they appeared. Matthew dragging the stroller with Gracie manning it like a ships’ captain. We were safe onto the sand-compacted walking trails of the preserve. Gracie demanded to go home; “I’m soaked”, she said pathetically. “Okay, we’re on our way” we said.

We slowly walked up the hill, the rain did let up a bit, now it was misting. We turned the corner to our street and let out a sigh of relief. We were home, finally. And after three months of living in the Amazon, a hot shower felt great.

Culinary Limit

2006-11-14T16:06:00.000-05:00

Today I reached my culinary limit. As we all know, I am making all the lunches now… Matthew brought home a fresh wild chicken. He said they didn’t have any of the prepared frozen kind, the kind that I am used to cooking (like what we get at the supermarket in the states). I thought, okay, no biggie, I’m sure I can make something delish with it. I took the bag and dropped it into the sink and didn’t think about it again until 11AM, when it came time to prepare it for cooking.

Out of the bag I pulled a chicken, yes the complete chicken with all the innards attached. Now, understand, I’ve never claimed to be one of those chefs that likes to hunt down the prey, skin and cook it. I’m more like the type to go to Whole Foods and buy it, cut and cleaned, removed from anything resembling a live entity with a soul. When I looked at the poor little beak, closed eyes, and dangling feet… a wave of guilt rushed over me, and then, a wave of disgust. I’m all about the Slow Food Movement, but this really putting a face on the food!

I gagged twice, as I shoved its head back into the bag, and stretched its neck across the middle divide of the sink. I grabbed the butcher knife with apprehension, and starting chopping down the neck. A horrible cracking sound rose up, and again I gagged. Man, this is for the birds (pun intended) isn’t there a KFC around?? (in fact there isn’t one fast food restaurant in Rio Branco, which is good, right?). Anyhow, I managed to not vomit while pulling out all the insides, there were things in there I couldn’t identify.

Its funny, but I started to feel better about eating it once I had it cut up into its “proper” portions. I guess I am an American, I like my foods uninhabited , defaced. There is no honor in that, I know. But, I have to say it like it is. So, I threw it all in to a pot, poured some homemade teriyaki sauce over it, added in cut up pineapple and green onions and viola, Teriyaki Chicken, delish! Yes, I am a chef after all!

Gracie & Matthew w/chicken

Fond Farewell? To Lana-Nana

2006-11-07T15:56:00.000-05:00

This morning I awoke to the sounds of rain drizzle, that always makes me sleep in. Matt had gotten up already. It was 7:15 AM and I could hear Nana in the kitchen washing up dishes from last night. A loud crash from as glass or plate woke up the baby and I thought, "oh well, there goes another". Lets just say that Nana isn't the most graceful. However, after my last post I may have been a bit harsh. My friend, Jamie, reminded me that getting married at thirteen, you don't get much training or many moral lessons.

So, it was 7:15 AM and I could hear Nana in the kitchen washing up dishes from last night. A loud crash from as glass or plate woke up the baby and I thought, “oh well, there goes another”. Lets just say that Nana isn’t the most graceful. However, after my last post I may have been a bit harsh. My friend, Jamie, reminded me that getting married at thirteen, you don’t get much training or many moral lessons.

Yesterday, we had presented her with a list of things that should be done daily, so she had some structure to her week. We felt that she needed structure, due to the fact of her leaving early with dirty pans shoved into the oven and other things to that effect. After a month we had a good idea of how we wanted things to go, so we made up a weekly schedule and told her that if she got things done she could leave early. I had done one day of the schedule on Saturday and finished up by 1pm. So, I thought the schedule wsa reasonable. We also told her to change it around as she saw fit and if she couldn’t finish up by 3pm, she could leave for the next day. That’s fair.

We were on good terms. But this morning Matthew went to get some underwear off the clothes line and noticed that all of our whites were PINK! Yes, Pink… okay, I got a little pissed at this point. I mean, I sucked it up when she dripped bleach all over my black nursing shirt and cool pants I got on Haight-Ashbury in S.F. What really pissed me off, is that she didn’t tell me right after this happened so that I could try to reverse it with bleach. Instead, she rewashed them, WITHOUT BLEACH! Again we had to find out by discovery. We all make mistakes, but owning up to those mistakes and trying to do better, is what makes a good employee, shit, a good person.

She started crying and said she was sorry for all she had done (stealing coins and pain meds, on top of the aforementioned). Now, keep in mind, this is the first apology I’ve heard from her, even after we confronted her about the coins and medicine. She spoke with Matthew while I filled the washing machine with bleach and water. I listened but didn’t understand anything. Matthew called to me and said that she wanted to leave and not come back. I felt bad for her. She is only 16, and I think back on all the shit I did in my adolescence and how cool people were with me… So, I walked inside to her and told Matthew to translate verbatim.
“it’s the choices we make that create the people we are. We all make mistakes, but its how you choose to deal with those mistakes that builds our character. You can’t always run away from uncomfortable situations. (emotional silence here) I would like you to stay, but be honest and upfront with me.” So she looked at me and smiled, I smiled too and she stayed. Then an hour later, she came to Matt and said she still wanted to leave. At that point, we paid her and she left…

As I hang up the load to dry, I can’t help but feel weird about it. I think I am feeling that old martyr feeling again. That same ol’ rut that kept me in a terrible relationship for so long-- (Scarlet O‘hara voice: “I can change him, I know I can”). I think I didn’t want to fire her because I thought I could make her a better person. Sometimes, you just can’t… Welp, at least I saved all the whites except for Matthew’s Eddie Bauer socks, they will have to remain a nice rendition of the 80s IZOD-pink.

Dona de Casa: Part Two

2006-10-30T16:37:00.000-05:00

Today marks one month in our new home. A routine has established and I’m feeling much better about having the help around here. However, there are some things that are disturbing about having someone underfoot. Before I delve into the oddities of having someone around all day, let me rant for a minute.

First off, Lana’s name really isn’t Lana, its Nana. She never corrected me. About two weeks into her employment, she told Matthew it was Nana. It took me a few days to get it straight and Grace still calls her Lana. Secondly, for all of you who are wondering if Nana is pregnant, she is not. It did come out that she is on fertility pills, which is disturbing to me, since she is only sixteen. Does the government pay for fertility treatments? How many treatments are you allowed?, who qualifies? If she doesn’t, How can she afford this? Interesting thread here, considering people in the US pay beaucoup bucks for said treatments. Questions I would love to ask, again I feel mute…

This revelation does disturb me, but not as much as the day she communicated that she has been married for three years. I stared at her in amazement, as I slowly understood what she was saying. I reiterated what she said as best I could by making hand gestures and using broken Portuguese to make sure I understood that in fact she got married at thirteen. “Da, da, certo” (yes, yes, right) she said. I was, I AM, appalled! I felt like a great injustice was done to this girl. She quit school at thirteen and got married. I’ve been trying to understand this but having two girls, I don’t think I can swallow this bitter pill. I know I’m being ethnocentric here and yes this does happen in the States, but usually the girl is pregnant…but even then, thirteen is pretty much on the young end of the spectrum. To my credit I did talk to Francimar about this, to get a local perspective and she agrees that, as she says, “its disgusting” to allow a 13- year-old to get married, not to mention against the law. I prodded her a bit more and she went on to say that sometimes parents will go with the couple to the court and state that they are okay with the arrangement, then a type of adoption occurs, where the husband to be adopts the girl.

Brazilian law states that girls can marry at sixteen with parental consent, and Cosmo believes that if she did get married at thirteen, it was not a legal ceremony, or it was an adoption type arrangement. I also found out that children are not allow to work until they are 18, they must apprentice for two years before starting to work. I think Nana would have benefited from apprenticing, but since she is married she is exempt from this policy.

Okay, moving on to having someone in your stuff all day. After a month of having someone here, this is what’s bothering me. First of all, she shoves all of our personal stuff into all kinds of places, off of the counter surfaces and out of sight. She was probably told to keep all surface areas cleared of nick-nacks. So when we go to find, oh, lets say, a set of keys that were on the bureau, we have to hunt in all the drawers. Second, when I’m home, for example, the other day I was showing Gracie pictures on the camera, and I looked up and she was standing at the door staring at us. Then twice, I went to find my flip-flops and she was wearing them!! And to top it all off, I noticed she has been dipping into my facial cream--the movie Single White Female came to mind (those of you too young to get this reference here’s the link). So what, you might ask. Yea, so what, maybe I‘m being paranoid. So, she may be a little weird, a little young and I don’t want to say dense, but sometimes, yes, dense. Like washing my purple velour hand-towel with my white cotton bath towel (which is a lovely shade of lavender now)or putting fabric softner into the steam function on the iron because the bottle said "helps with ironing". But hey, she keeps my floors clean, has the coffee made by 7 every morning, and has lunch on the table everyday at 12:30. I’ve got nothing to complain about…except for the flip-flop thang, that’s kinda weird.

Bolivia

2006-10-26T23:01:00.000-05:00

Our trip to Bolivia was somewhat of a let down. When Cosmo picked us up bright and early for our trip to Bolivia, I had so many cool expectations. I had imagined brightly colored textiles, women with long black braids and broad faces, with babies wrapped on their backs, weaving beautiful rugs…this wasn’t exactly what we encountered.
We piled into the red VW Golf and flew to a Shell gas station to fuel up (you think gas is expensive in the states? Try six bucks a gallon!). The trip would take about three hours. The road had the familiar bumps I’ve come to associate with Brazilian roads, but instead of winding, it stretched out straight in front of us, like a long zipper. We were flanked with wide open farm land, accented with white cows. I noticed there were tall trees with plumage at the very top. A tree that looked as if it was once part of the forest canopy, but looked naked, vulnerable, standing by themselves dotting the horizon.
Cosmo noticed me looking at the trees and told us that Brazil passed a law, making it illegal to cut down the castanha tree (the Brazil nut tree). So what we saw, was the deforestation of the jungle, all except the fortunate castanha tree…or the not so fortunate, if you ask me.
I couldn’t wait to get to Bolivia and buy fresh tortillas. Once we got to the border town of Cobija, we stopped at a restaurant for a bite to eat. Cosmo had never heard of tortillas and Matthew asked the waiter if they had them in Bolivia. He said yes, and that got us even more excited. Its funny but before we left the states, I would have never expected to miss tortillas!! I guess, for us, it is a household staple. Grace insists on having quesadillas so I have to make her a grill cheese sandwich, cut off the crusts and tell her its made with Brazilian tortillas! The food at the restaurant was Brazilian food, which was a disappointment I guess it’s the same in all border towns, the borders become blurred after while (a good example of this would be San Ysidro).
After lunch, Cosmo took us to the center of town, where all the action was. My heart sank as we drove down the street and I looked out the window. What I saw was basically Tijuana for Brazilians. For those of you not familiar with Southern California, Tijuana is where Californians go to find a plethora of “brand name“ items at a fraction of the price. I parentheses brand name, because its assumed that these items are forgeries. We walked down one side of the street filled with one shop after another selling the same things, designer perfumes, kitchen wares, toys and electronics, oh and least not, fake Christmas trees adorned with snow spray… what a bummer. Although, I did see one older woman with long braids down her back, that were tied together and dreaded out at the bottom. I imagined she had never cut her hair, this was a far cry from what I had imagined. I guess nothing is ever how we imagine it to be, right?
Anyhow, we did our best to buy up crap we didn’t need and settled for the small indigenous experience of drinking fresh squeezed orange juice from a woman peeling and squeezing on the corner. She had a hand crank peeler, which cut the peel into one long curling strip as she churned the hand crank. It made for a lovely orange colored fringe around her cart. I imagine that she dries the peels and uses them for tea.
We ended our trip by purchasing about 15 pirated DVDs, and we’re excited at the prospect of watching Pirates of the Caribbean II. However, once home, only five of the fifteen DVDs worked (serves us right for buying pirated copies!)…that pretty much sums up our trip to Bolivia.

A Trip to the Healer

2006-10-16T23:27:00.000-05:00

It was Thursday night when Francimar noticed how agitated Maddie was. Maddie had had a fever for the entire day, nothing to worry about, just fighting off something (you can tell this is our second child). She said that we needed to take her to the rezador (healer) for a healing because the evil-eye had taken all her energy. When Matt translated this, I thought okay, this is the second time that someone has mentioned my child having the evil-eye. And this time, from Francimar, a biochemist who teaches at the local university. So, when she offered to take us to her friend, a healer, I agreed.

Francimar and her 15-year-old daughter, Rinata, picked us up at 5:30 PM. We were to be at the rezador around 6 PM. We dumped along winding roads filled with potholes listening (quite loudly) to Rinata‘s favorite American band, Oasis. She kept yelling back at me asking for a translation of the lyrics. Lucky for me, I knew the song and could tell her what he was saying. At this point, I realized that riding in the back of cars is very juvenile in nature. Since I’ve arrived in Brazil, I’ve had to ride in the backseat holding the girls (car seats are not mandatory here and will not fit in most of the small cars). You cannot roll down window, cannot open the door, and you certainly cannot adjust the air conditioner vents, which is desperately needed in this hot and humid environment. You have to rely on the “front seat people”, the privileged two, who get the vents right in their face. How annoying! I really felt annoyed when Rinata asked me if I knew how to drive! Man, I felt like telling her that I was driving before she was born, but then I didn’t know how to say that in Portuguese nor did I want to own up to being that old…

We arrived at a clinic of some sort. We got out of the tiny Fiat and rang the bell to the gate. An older woman, with a leopard pint shirt, that was far too small, accentuating her waist rolls, came slowly down the two flights of steep stairs. Grace was the first to yell out to her, Oi! Then Francimar and the woman exchanged greetings and once the gates opened they hugged and kissed Brazilian style, a kiss on both cheeks. I did the same and we were lead up to the home above the clinic. The stairs were narrow and steep and the smelled like cold concrete. It was hard to carry the baby, manage Grace as she climbed up and hold up my long skirt so I didn‘t trip going up. I made a mental note not to wear a long skirt when going to unknown places, especially in Brazil where often houses have stairs that locate them off the streets.

The stairs led us to a door that opened into a large living room, that had two bedrooms connected and a large dining area that gave way to a kitchen. Grace ran off with another little girl that was there. Its funny how there are no barriers when it comes to the language of play.

As soon as I finished greeting the other woman in the house, about five other women suddenly appeared from the bedrooms, all chattering around Maddie, touching her hair and making favorable comments, I guess. I just smiled and said “Obrigada” --thank you. We sat down on the chocolate L shaped couch and waited. I wasn’t sure what we were waiting for and my prejudice had me believing leopard shirt, was the rezadora. I’m not sure why I thought the healer would be a women.

The only man in the house soon appeared. He was considerably shorter than me, I would say about 5’3”, with jet black hair and smile wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. His hands looked old and veiny, worn from many years of life. He saturated some pieces of cotton in a brown tea looking liquid. I asked Rinata what this liquid was and she told me it was Vegetal, the sacred form of Ayahuasca used by the church, the UDV I stood up, holding Maddie face out and greeted him with the formal Brazilian greeting, “Bom dia, todo bom?” and a kiss on either cheek.

He held the wet cotton pieces in the palm of his right hand, and with his left caressed Maddie’s face and head. He then asked me to take a seat on the couch and he proceeded to place the palm holding the vegetal soaked cotton on top of Maddie’s soft spot. He held it there for a few seconds while mumbling prayers, then he slowly slid his hand, that was in the shape of a cup, off the side of Maddie’s head meeting his other hand that was also shaped in a cup, as if swiping a substance into the palm of his other hand and holding it by cupping both hands together and then carrying it to the open window and throwing it outside. I imagined this was the evil energy that befell my Maddie. He did this a number of times, all the while in a deep meditative trance, his lips moving in prayer.

The healing took approximately ten minutes and I was instructed via Francimar to not give Maddie a bath until the morning. The vegetal smelled like teriyaki glaze to me, and left Maddie’s hair stiff. We were supposed to watch over her and if she still appeared agitated, we were to give her, by mouth, three drops of vegetal with four drops of water. I took this information and thought, “she will be fine, there will be no need for this extra internal cleansing” (I‘m not that open-minded when it comes to giving my baby a hallucinogen). Maddie was calm the rest of the night, however, the tea left a rash on her forehead. Not a bad one but still red and blotchy.

She’s been in good spirits, but when we went downtown the other night a woman, sitting on a bench, kept staring at Maddie and asked her name, I hesitated in answering, thinking that maybe she might give her the evil-eye…“Naaaa, I don’t believe in that stuff.” I thought, and yelled out, “Madeline”. She looked at me puzzled, and said “que?” Many people don’t understand “Madeline” because its not a Brazilian name and we have to repeat it a few times before they can get it. But this time I didn‘t repeat it, we just kept walking.

Bowel Habits

2006-10-10T17:40:00.000-05:00

I may have reconsidered going into the field with a 2&½-year-old freshly potty trained toddler, if I knew how hard it was going to be. The stress of the move has caused a back slide in her training, well the move and the fact that we also have a new baby in the family. The combination was just too much and I think Grace’s only power in this temporarily unstable situation is the power to pee and poo where ever and when ever she can, but definitely not in the potty. The first few weeks were rough and we contemplated putting her back in diapers. We asked her if she wanted to go back to diapers and she said, “no, how about pull-ups?“ This cracked up us, and we searched all over Rio Branco for pull-ups, the transitional diaper to panties. Apparently there is not a need in Brazil for such items. So we’ve toughed it out and I’ve washed my share of panties for the past month. After a month, she is now going pee on the toilet but definitely not poo. With the latter, she has decided that she must either go outside on the lawn or in the shower. But not the potty, despite our offers of jelly beans, cookies, lolly pops, ice cream, basically every sweet treat under the sun!
On the diaper front, it appears that Brazil is about 20 years behind the US in quality of diaper and diaper care. The diaper wipes that they sell here are basically scented wet pieces of wax paper. It just smears the poo around the butt. The diapers leak and the tabs stick to Maddie’s skin if not super careful to fold them in while changing. So, for Christmas, Maddie has put on her wish list, Pampers Lavender scented baby wipes. We can deal with the diapers because they are too bulky for Santa (Matt’s mom) to fly them down to us.
Along with poor diapers comes diaper rash! I’ve had to battle this with Maddie, Grace only had rash once in her diaper career. But the heat in combination with bad absorption, equals painful rashes. Need-less-to-say, Maddie goes naked-butt quite often around here. She’s our streaker, well, Grace is as well. Ever since she’s learned to take off her clothes, I can’t seem to keep them on her. I guess there are worse things. I’m choosing my battles and I choose the “Battle of the Poo”.

The adventures of Tom Sawyer

2006-10-10T17:28:00.000-05:00

Last night a huge storm blew through. Thunder and lighting rocked the atmosphere and we ran outside and jumped into our hammocks. It was quite the spectacle. The water poured off the roof and into the rain gutter and at times spilled over the sides. The air was heavy with water and everything on the front porch, including us, were wet.
Lately, Gracie’s imagination has been super active. She decided that we were on a river in our canoes. So we all took on different names, Matt was Mark Twain, Grace-Tom Sawyer, Maddie-Huck Finn, and me- well, I was Jim. Which seems apt, since being a woman in Brazil, at times, places me in the same category as Jim in the 19th-century South. This topic I will expand upon in a later blog.
This morning we awoke and Grace still wanted to refer to us all as our river names and so, we got our cups of joe and headed out to front porch river. We saddled up in our canoes and headed down looking for a good fishing spot. Grace bailed out of the canoe and went for a little swim and caught a huge fish for lunch.

the pics below are Mark Twain and Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn and Jim, Tom Sawyer swimming for fish, and Tom guiding us through some rough waters.

My Second Church Service

2006-10-10T17:25:00.000-05:00

Upon arriving to the church, everything was more familiar and less strange. Although, the whole fire cracker thing is a bit disconcerting. Every so often, I’m sure demarcated by a certain hymn, fire works explode right next to the church, which causes Grace to run frantically, face first into my crotch, screaming in fright. What does shooting off fireworks signify? They are the kind that have no color, they just pop loudly, and no one is there is watch, they are all singing in the church. I’m leaping at an interpretation here, but I think they set off the fireworks as a way of connecting the earthly plane to the astral or heavens. I will have to ask one of the ladies at the church. Given my limited vocabulary, this may take some time.

Many things made this church service different for me, first, there were only about 100 people at this hinario (a book of hymns that are sung during the service). Second, given that there were less people, it was easy to move around from the back area to the front where the hinario was being sung. This freed up a lot of room for Gracie to run around. Third, I felt more comfortable because the women had seen them at the anniversary hinario and gave me friendly smiles. The kids also, made it nice when they ran up to Grace and patted her on her back. They would speak to her and she would look at them and then, surprised me by saying, “no folo Portugese”. She will be speaking before me, I’m sure.

From what I understand there are several different books of hymns. These hymns were received by a person while in miracao, or in the vision of huasca. The hymns are about different topics and Matt told me that the book sung at this hinario have to do with being a truthful person and dealing with others who lie in our lives. A hinario, or the singing of a book of hymns, takes roughly 6 or 7 hours depending on the number of hymns.

During this service, I really took note to see if I could tell if people were under the influence. Many, well most, had a glassy look to their eyes and their pupils were large. One kid, bent down to tie his shoe and he stumbled to the side, cracking up. But, other than the normal physiological displays of the sacrament, everyone seemed pretty normal and very happy. I use the word sacrament here because it feels wrong to me to use the word “drug”. It feels inappropriate after spending time with the members. They view the tea as a tool to help them be in touch with God. A tool to help them reach the astral plane. So its seems derogatory to refer to their sacrament as a drug.

I watched as the women blessed themselves with the sign of the cross before drinking down Ayahuasca and then moving back to the main center to fall in line and start singing the hymns. Many of the women dance like swaying trees, gliding back and forth, while the men stomp vigorously, making large noises with their homemade maracas. The maracas chime in beat with the guitars and the voices singing. All of the maracas are homemade and vary size and materials. There were little tomato cans with wooden handles used by the kids, or slightly larger cans for the women. Some men used pint paint cans and large ball bearings that made a colossal sound.

I made a friend who speaks pretty good English. She has agreed to help me gather birth stories in exchange for English lessons. I’m thrilled. Apparently it is very common for women to use their sacrament to help ease the stress of childbirth…

Morning

2006-10-10T17:22:00.000-05:00

Early in the morning I get up and go for a walk before the sun heats up the roads and the wind kicks up the dust. Its nice being up so early, the streets are desolate except for some dogs running around looking for something to eat. At first, I got a jolt, thinking they would come after me, but then soon, I realized they are not interested in humans, unless they have food in their hands. Early in the mornings, I can see people waking up, servant people washing down front porches and drive ways, and kids getting ready for school. The roosters greet me, and I find peace in the smells of the morning.

Our neighborhood appears to be mid-to-low class in its make up. Some houses are super elaborate with electronic fencing, tile driveways bordered with large palms, while other homes appear to be slightly above waddle and dab. There is no rhyme or reason to the housing or the roads. Our road is paved, albeit very dusty from the dirt roads that transect it. The city was not planed on any type of a grid system, so roads look like they sprung up, like they were cut into the landscape by rushing water that fingers out across the land. Their topography is more likely a result of foot trails in the jungle made by the rubber tapers during the rubber boom at the turn of the 20th Century.

The road that we are on leads up to one of the two main highways going into the center of town and is blessed by a large Catholic church on the corner surrounded by Mango trees where we often retrieve delicious fruits. This is a very good location for us. There are two butchers, a bakery, a mercantile, and numerous fruit stands within walking distance and the church where Matthew studies is a 10-minute bike ride away. The main highway is where I‘ve started taking my morning walks, out of a sense of security because I know I wont get lost if I stay on this main road. Along this road is the butcher that I go to, an older gentleman, short and stout, like yoda, with glasses, who finds it very curious to have a white woman come in and speak a Spanish/Italian bastardization of Portuguese. The first few times, he didn’t say much to me, just the total of my purchase. But on this last morning walk, I waved to him and he waved back! Yeah, I’ve made a friend.

I’ve been walking for about a week now and the stares have become somewhat less. When I first went on my walks, in my new uber-white New Balance shoes, MP3 player and Baby Bjorn, I felt totally bourgeois-y, like Angelina Jolie in Setswana with slightly smaller lips a bigger hips. But now, I think the people have gotten used to seeing me steadily walking along the pothole stricken sidewalks and actually nod a good morning to me. I think I’m gonna like it here…

Dona de Casa

2006-10-10T17:03:00.000-05:00

Today marks the first day with a full time house keeper. Its strange, I feel like I have to keep the house much cleaner than I normally would. The old adage, "I need to clean before the maid comes"! I find I’m picking up after myself, my mom would be proud. It’s a funny feeling to have a stranger in your home all day long, cleaning up after you. Like right now, Lana, a portly-5 foot tall dark skinned woman, with kinky hair, is making our bed, and my mind is racing, trying to remember if I left my panties on the floor. Undergarments, I never thought much about them before and now all I can think about is someone else washing my panties, I’m obsessed and feel like I want to run out and buy all new undergarments, unstained! Gross!
My new role as “Dona de Casa“, has me feeling a bit uncomfortable. Four days have passed and I’m a bit less skeevo about my under panties, but more uncomfortable not cleaning! I can‘t believe it! I need to clean or do something to help out. Again, my mom would be proud. All those years of badgering me with Catholic guilt have paid off. Just when I think I’ve banished that guilt feeling and start to enjoy playing with the girls, or settle down in the hammock to read about Botswana, a place I image hotter than here, the Catholic church on the corner rings its bells, telling me to ”clean up” or “help out” with every chime. The guilt covers me like a familiar blanket from childhood. I’m hoping that eventually the guilt will subside.
A daily routine is starting to form. Every morning when Lana arrives to make our breakfast, I instruct her on what to do for the day and what to make for lunch (which is totally weird! I feel like the slave mistress). Then she proceeds to wash the dishes from the night before, wash down all the floors, clean the bedrooms and wash and iron what laundry there is ( Brazilians iron everything--sheets, socks and yes, panties!). While doing all this cleaning, she keeps sharp eye on the time, because at 11 AM she starts to prepare the lunch for the day. Lunches in Brazil are the main meal of the day and are always served with a large dish of rice and beans, a meat of some kind, gound manioc root fried in butter with onions or bacon, a veggie, salad and freshly blended juice made from frozen pulp bought at the market. This is my favorite part of lunch. I’ve grown quite a liking for maracuja, (passion fruit). Grace’s favorite is cupuaceu, a brown hairy fruit that grows on the bark of the tree and is about the size of a football. Another favorite is Caju, or cashew, there is a large fruit that the cashew nut grows on. It looks like a golden bell pepper with a cashew shaped pod on the end of it.
The daily lunch is always followed by a nice nap in an air conditioned room to escape the hottest time of the day. Around 4 PM the streets start to bustle again and shops reopen until 7 or 8 PM. While I’m settling the girls down for the afternoon nap and readying myself to have a nice sleep, I hear Lana in the kitchen cleaning up from lunch and I wonder about her nap? It seems that people of the lower working class do not have seista, it is only for the people who can afford to do so…
At 4 PM Lana calls it a day, and waits for Matthew or I to pay her 15 Reals, about $7.50. It doesn’t seem right, and I feel guilty for paying her so little. She works her ass off for a third of our dinner bill at Guadalajara. And what makes this situation even more extraordinary, is that Lana just turned sixteen! She dropped out of school in the 7th year, and is now married to the young man who delivered our furniture. When I look at Lana’s youthful face, my Ipod-myspace-15-year-old sister-n-law’s face comes to mind, the juxtaposition is striking.
Lana took time off yesterday to go to the doctors for an exam, we are not sure what kind of exam, but I think she may be pregnant…

the pics below are, the chuch on the corner, afternoon nap, and typical lunch at Cosmo's mom's house.

2006-09-22T10:19:00.000-05:00

After being in Brazil for a almost a month, I can pretty much follow long in a conversation. Of course, context and gesturing are 80% of understanding. However, this partial understanding of conversations can get me into some pretty unusual predicaments. Last weekend, I understood that we were going with Cosmo to watch the Gay Pride Parade and see a concert in the downtown square. We packed up the kids, and took off. While driving down to the parade, Cosmo turned the car around and I was told that we might be walking a little and we should go back and get the stroller for the kids. I thought, cool, we’ll stroll around the downtown square, support our gay friends, and get an ice cream to boot.

We arrived several minutes later and parked the car on a side street. With everyone ready to go, we walked down to the parade procession, which looked a lot like Carnival. People were dressed up in bright colored boas, high heels and mini-skirts and shirts. I was suddenly surrounded by navels, butt cheeks and cleavage. There were drag queens, floats with large speakers, and people bumpin’-n-grindin’ along the parade path. We followed Cosmo down to where the action was. The next thing I knew we WERE the action! We were walking in the middle of the crowd, with spectators watching us. I felt like I should be doing the parade queen wave. I’m sure it was quite a sight! There we were, the American family in the middle of a flaming crowd. I’ve never felt so middle-class conservative in my life! I felt the need to go and get a tattoo or another piercing or dye my grays!!!

We were bumped-n-grinded back and forth, running into the back of people, and into the sides of people. We were smack dab in the middle of a sea of people jumping up and down, proud to be gay. I have to say, for being so hot and crowded, the vibe was very positive. I was proud to be gay, even if I’m not. After I gave up my middle-aged self loathing, I started to have fun. I found myself bumping and grinding with Matthew & Grace to Donna Summer’s Dancing Queen and proud to be the only ones spelling out Y-M-C-A with our arms.
Enjoy the pictures!

Visiting the House that Ayahuasca Built

2006-09-19T11:15:00.000-05:00

I had nervous butterflies swarming in my belly anticipating the Ayahuasca ceremony that lay in front of me. As we zigzagged through the traffic going out to the church, I tried to calm my stomach by gazing out the backseat window at the beautiful sunset to the west. Its brilliant orange and red hues, subsequent of the fires that rage in this area, spread across the skyline leaving the jungle land golden. They call this season, “the burning season”, the time when people on the outskirts of the city burn the boarders of their land to show that they are using the property. Otherwise, squatters can come and claim the land as being abandoned.

We arrived at the church for the 50th wedding anniversary celebration of the Mestre and Dona Teresa. She, a young bride(19 years old), married the Mestre (60 years old) of the church in 1956. He passed away in 1972 and she took over as head of the church. As we bumped along the pothole stricken road, members of the church were walking along the highway to the church gates. I suspect that many members are of low income and do not own or have access to a vehicle. The congregation seems very diverse in its make up. I met a federal judge, a senator, a business man running for office, and the house servant that works for Cosmo at his house. The socio-economic breakdown will be interesting to see once Matthew gathers this information.

Members were dressed in their traditional uniforms, the women wore a white long skirt topped with a kelly-green short skirt, a white long-sleeve shirt, with a kelly-green sash stretching across their body from left shoulder down to the right hip. Their hair is worn down, so that energy can flow freely through it, and a white sequined crown is worn. The men were dressed in all white as well; long-sleeve shirts, and jackets, pants and white shoes. Each member is adorned with a gold star-shaped pin when he or she becomes fardado/a, confirmed in their belief.

As we walked into the church structure, which was palapa style, I was instructed to go with the children to the left, while Matthew was told to go to the right. The men are not allowed over on the left side of the church, this area is designated women and children only. This caused some anxiety because I didn’t understand anything the women were telling me. I just followed and was lead to the back room. The room was another large palapa style structure with a thatched roof surrounded with a three foot high wall. The room was filled with hammocks, we found an open space for our hammock to fit. When I say open, I mean a two-foot space on the beam between two hammocks. There were over a hundred hammocks hanging, some had little bundles, babies sleeping, swaying in the breeze. We secured our and stowed our bags of food and water against the wall. I felt as through I couldn’t leave the back area because of the kids. However, as time progressed I did wander a bit with Grace on my shoulders as Maddie slept in the hammock.

Once the ceremony started all the women and men lined up on their designated sides, and each drank a quantity of Ayahuasca and returned to their place in the main room. Soon I could hear guitar music, singing and maracas shaking in rhythm. Matthew told me that they would sing the entire hymnal of Mestre’s hymns, which consisted of over hundred hymns. There would be a break at 9:30 PM, at this time, half the hymnal would be complete.

Fardada women with their children milled in and out of the backroom, and kids of various ages ran back and forth between the main festivities and the hammock room. Most of the kids swarmed Grace because she was the only blonde hair child. We were quite the spectacle because we were foreigners. Many children wanted to practice their English, but most of the women stayed clear of us.

Grace and I danced to the music and watched as large insects flew in and out of the room. While watching a large beetle fly around, I notice what appeared to be large hairy spider legs curled around one of the top roof beams. I thought, “that looks like tarantula legs”. Could it be?? I walked slowly around to get a better view, and sure enough, a huge tarantula, the size of my hand, was perched over the room, watching intensely. Normally, I would have been terrified but, since I watched a Jeff Corwin Adventure show where he assured me that tarantulas were not dangerous to humans, I looked in amazement. I showed Grace and she wanted to climb up to get a better look, she is definitely her fathers’ daughter.

A couple of hours into the ceremony Grace wanted to go and find Matthew. So, I perched her on my shoulders and we went into the main room. There we saw, the women and children standing in straight lines forming an L wrapped around the main alter and the men on their designated side also forming an L, together creating a human square around the center alter where Dona Teresa sat. They were dancing back and fourth, two side steps to the right and then two back to the left. Everyone, even the children, singing and dancing and shaking their maracas. The sound was deafening and the feel was energetic. Matthew was easy to see, since he stood a good foot over everyone in the room. He was dancing and singing on the outskirts of the main square. All those people who came that are not fardado must not join the main square. Grace wanted to go to him, but I promised her we would see him soon at the break.

The break finally came, marking its arrival with a firework display that scared Grace and Maddie half-to-death. We found Matthew and told him we wanted to leave, that trying to sleep in a hammock was out of the question. He agreed and we found Dona Teresa to say goodbye and congratulate her. I was surprised that everyone seemed pretty normal, despite the fact they were all miracao, or in the vision of Ayahuasca. So, my fear of being surrounded by a bunch of people all tripping out, was dispelled. The people of this religion believe that Ayahuasca is a sacred tea that heals their soul. I have much to learn from these people...

Ethnographic Space

2006-09-15T16:19:00.000-05:00

Tonight marks the 50th wedding anniversary of the Mestre and Dona Teresa, the founders of an Ayahuasca religion. Although the Mestre has been deceased since 1992, his wife will be in mourning for the rest of her life, and never to remarry. Over 500 people will be descending on the church tonight at 6 pm. The festivities end around 4:30 AM and resume with a barbeque on Saturday around noon. People are traveling from all over Brazil to celebrate. I feel a bit uncomfortable to be going since I will not be participating in drinking Ayahausca or singing the hymns of celebration. To ease my discomfort, I keep repeating to myself that this is an ideal ethnographic space I will be entering. We, the kids and I, will be hanging out in the “children’s area”, a back room of the church designated for the children. I want to study pregnancy and Ayahuasca and thus the children of Ayahuasca, so there is no better place to be. And to answer your question, yes, the children take the tea as well, albeit smaller sized portion. I’m anxious to see this situation. We leave in 20 minutes…

Meeting Frog & Toad and Other Creepy Crawlers

2006-09-14T20:10:00.000-05:00

Before I left the states I was known by friends and family as the “Ant Warrior”. I battled ants in my house daily! I couldn’t stand them in my kitchen. It irked me to no end. I even used that horrible pesticide a time or two. Now, I don’t know what I was expecting moving to the Amazon. Maybe, I thought houses would have screens on their windows so that creepy crawly and flying bugs wouldn’t come in…wrong! There are no screens in this country! And in many cases there are no windows either. Like our new house, for instance. There are elaborate bars on the window frames, but no windows. The only explanation I can come up with is that bugs are just a way of life here. Last night, I went from my room to the kitchen around 6pm, after dark, and there was a labyrinth of bugs on the walls and floors of the hallway and kitchen. I felt like I was in some scene from Indiana Jones… I gathered up my skirt and ran through to the kitchen, I only got a few flying ants in my hair!!! Tonight we took some stuff over to the new house and when we entered the kitchen we were met by a little green frog. She was cute. I’m assuming it’s a she because it was in the kitchen!! How chauvinist of me! Anyhow, Gracie was all excited since we just read the “Adventures of Frog and Toad” for naptime. A little bit later we went to use the bathroom and opened the door on Toad! A large frog sitting very still on the sink, looking stoic. He was the size of a hardball. Now, I’m assuming it was a he since it was in the bathroom, and we all know its hard to get a man out of the bathroom, especially if he’s got something good to read. Unbeknownst to me, Cosmo had written a to-do list of rules for husbands, and number three on the list was to take frogs out of the bathrooms. Thank God, because I wasn’t quite up to the task. Since I’ve got eleven more months in the jungle, I’ve acquired a Zen-type feeling toward those tiny adorable creatures. They are good for the ecosystem, they are not here to terrorize me specifically, they are not going to crawl up my nose while I sleep AND, they are not going to crawl in my mouth and poop on my tongue. Gross!

Starting Fieldwork

2006-09-11T17:02:00.000-05:00

On Wednesday, we went with Matthew out to the church where he will be conducting his research to meet the head women, Dona Teresa. I was a bit nervous and was told to wear a dress or skirt and that I shouldn’t bare my shoulders. I felt as though I was preparing to meet the Pope, and I guess, that is what this women is to her congregation.

We bumped along the dirt road out to her house, my back started to pain me a bit from the pot- holes. I could see a statue of Dona Teresa’s late husband in the far distance. A broken down fence blocked any view of her home from the outside. In fact, I was quite unimpressed with how the house looked. Older in appearance, with chickens and roosters milling about. A low hanging thatch roof covered the walkway up to the porch. Here is where we waited, in what looked like a make shift waiting room. Chairs and porch couches lined the perimeter and a large throne-like chair with red velour coverings on the arms and foot stool, stood at the center. After waiting for about 10 minutes, a small, frail looking woman, in a polyester dress and rubber flip-flops walked slowly up to the chair and took her place. Matthew stood up and so did I, and greeted her with a small hand shake and head bow. And then small talk commenced. Much of which I didn’t understand.

She made much ado about the kids. Matthew told her that Grace had been sick and she quicked reasoned that someone jealous of us had put a curse on us. She advised us to seek out a shaman for help. In the meantime, Cosmo had captivated Grace's attention with a Cicada about the size of a hummingbird he found under his chair. He picked it up and cradled it in his hands, soon it slowly crawled out onto his arm and rested. Grace was amazed and look closely into its eyes before it took off in thunderous flight and scared her half to death.

There were young women helping out, bringing out coffee and treats to eat. One woman had a 3 year-old boy that ran around with Gracie. I've made note of her name to ask her later for an interview. On the 15th of September the church is having a "work" which will start at 6pm and end our 4 in the morning. I'm a bit apprenhensive about going. The thought of bringing out the kids for the night is something I'd rather not do. However, Cosmo assures me that we can bring out our own hammacks and be in the children's room, where all the kids play and rest. We'll see. It would be interesting ethnographically...

This encounter was interesting and I can't wait until I can understand the babbling of Portugese so I can participate in the conversations. It is tough being on the outside of things...

More Random Shots of Rio Branco

2006-09-08T11:26:00.000-05:00

Music in the square
Maddie turns 4 months
In front of the fountain downtown
Grace grabbing her piece of bbq off the skewer
Rinata, Ayrton, Francimar, Matthew & Cosmo

Random Shots

2006-09-08T11:05:00.000-05:00

grace tasting the coconut juice
Matt and Grace having fun
Grace dosen't like coconut juice

Matthew working with the men of Alto Santo

Vomiting Coconuts

2006-09-08T09:15:00.000-05:00

The family sick bed

Acclimating to a foreign country can be no fun! Yesterday, we all fell ill with a stomach illness. Maddie was the only one spared thanks to mother nature's super filters! Grace threw up three times during the night, which scared her half to death, since this was the first time she experienced vomiting. When Cosmo got home from English class, Matthew told him how sick we were. He jetted off in his car saying his was going to get something for us. I felt relieved, thinking that MOM or Pepto was on its way. Need-less-to-say, I was a bit bummed, when a knock came at our door 15 minutes later and Matthew was handed two large coconuts, freshly cut with straws coming out the top. The locals say that coconut milk helps with diarrhea and vomiting, but Grace didn't like the taste and neither do I for that matter--so we suffered! We are all zapped.

We were to travel to Bolivia today, this is kinda ironic since today is Brazil's independence day. Unfortunately, we are going to postpone the trip for a few days. I'm bummed because I was looking forward to seeing and meeting some Bolivian cattle women.

The weather here today has been surprisingly delightful. Like early September in Charlottesville--warm but not too humid, a chill to the air in the early morning and nice breeze in the late afternoon. Quite a surprise considering we are smack dab in the middle of the Amazon rainforest. The usual day starts out cool but by the time we are up from siesta (not sure what they call this period of the day down here), about 4pm, its pretty hot and still. I've heard parrots screeching but haven't seen any yet. They have cicada's down here that chirp at a high frequency, almost like the sound that high voltage power lines put out. They are about 3 times bigger than the cicada's in the states, about the size of a humming bird. Cosmo has a gift for catching them and then calming them down so much that they crawl up on this shoulder and hang out for a while. I've dubbed him the "cicada whisperer".

Corn Flakes and Garlic

2006-09-05T09:45:00.000-05:00

This morning while munching Corn Flakes and sipping extremely sweet coffee (the helper, Anaya, serves the coffee presweetened with saccharin, ick!) an interesting topic was brought up. Garlic, alho. Apparently, not only does garlic smell and taste good it is also a great deterrent of the “evil eye”. People will construct shrines made of garlic and position them around the house at key points to ward of such evilness. I asked if people also use it to ward off vampires? Cosmo, our host, said yes, but mostly its used to chase away werewolves. From what Cosmo said, “country folks“, people who live farther into the jungle, believe in such folktales. Cosmo said with a smirk, “werewolves are a real threat to country folk“. I was left reflecting on Cosmo’s words. Cosmo is what we call a “self-made” man. He lived in the jungle with his three little sisters, mother and father until he was around 6-years-old. His father thought he would be able to provide a better life for his family if they were to move to the city. But after a few months, it was too hard for his father to get work, he had no city skills. Shortly after arriving in the city, the father fell ill with meningitis and died, leaving the mother with four small children helpless in the city. It’s a wonder why the mother didn‘t go back to the jungle. Maybe she had no means to get them back to where they came from... Lucky for Cosmo, he was able to attend public schools in the city for free. He subsequently did very well on this college entrance exams. If you pass the entrance exam, then the government will pay for your college education. He is now the district attorney for Rio Branco. So for him mock "country” folks falls very close to home, for he teetered on that line for a number of years…

The First Leg: Struggling with Nomadism

2006-08-03T13:12:00.000-05:00

Its 8:02 AM, 65 degrees, and the sun is rapidly to heating up the air. The paper says it should be around 98 today. I’m thinking, 98 and zero humidity—now that’s nice. The wind blows cool and the sun burns fiercely.

The flight from Dulles was uneventful, except for the two poo incidents, which I do not care to discuss. We spent the day in Berkeley, stomping through Matt’s old grounds. I have to say, Grace looked mighty cute dancing to a spontaneous rock/reggae fusion band playing in front of the infamous administration building steps.

We find ourselves in Redding, this area of Northern California has fabulous qualities that make me feel like hiking among cactus and desert sage. Its dry mountainous scape lies at the bottom of Mount Shasta --the “energy point” for new agers.

I’ve been cooking and cleaning up our hosts homes, first out of guestly duty but more than that. I think I’m trying to process the whole idea of being a nomad. For me, this may sound patriarchal, but the kitchen is my hearth. To be without kitchen, home, car, and bills is freeing but also scary. For the first time in my adult life I have no strings, we are a family of balloons tied together and anchored by nothing… interesting feel.

Next stop is our old college town of Chico…

Passion

2006-07-15T14:17:00.000-05:00

How birth is represented x-culturally is a passion of mine. I also find it interesting how discourse of birthing and breastfeeding evoke such emotion from so many, whether it's a debate on the timeless pro-life/pro-choice, or some rant about a woman breastfeeding in public or prenatal care.

The Issues I'd like to delve into are centered on the idea of interpersonal boundaries, physical & mental. One thread of exploration is the act of crossing the "bubble", the physical boarder that allows a space of autonomy, a buffer zone, between persons. I've found that when one becomes pregnant, people have no problem rubbing and touching the pregnant woman's stomach, the area of the body that is usually very personal. A second thread is crossing the line of cultural appropriateness during pregnancy. What I mean is when a person conducts herself not in accordance with what is "normal" for her culture. For example, the ingestion of drugs, the use of alcohol, or smoking cigarettes while pregnant. And, thus the reaction this causes by surrounding adults. Some questions that come to mind are; what are the culturally constructed rules that exist in other cultures, and how do women negotiate these rules x-culturally? I hope to find some insight by talking to women about their pregnancy care, beliefs about personal conduct while pregnant, and their experiences giving birth.

Okay, so the paragraphs above read like a bunch of wooden sentences! Here's the scoop. This is what I hope to do while hanging with my family in Rio Branco, Brazil; talk to some really nice women about childbirth...

(to see these stories).

Personal

2006-06-26T12:13:00.000-05:00

Okay, so personally what do I think about moving to another country with two small children? Hey, it will be just like living in Charlottesville, except no one will speak English…right? To tell you the truth I’m not sure what to think. I’m a bit scared, a whole lot of excited and a little apprehensive. But I’ve always been one to confront change head on. I think my biggest fear is the traveling. LAX to Chicago , 10 hours down to Sao Paulo, from Sao Paulo another 10 hour flight up and over to Rio Branco. All with a lap baby and toddler, and oh yea, my hubby too.

Reason

2006-06-25T11:49:00.000-05:00

So, why exactly are we moving to Brazil? Well, my husband Matthew (view his blog) will be conducting his PhD fieldwork among the founding religious group Alto Santo. From the many ear-bending conversaions that we've had, I have gleaned that this church, founded in the 1930s during the collaspe of the rubber industry, is a unique religon that borrows aspects from Catholism and uses an indigious amazonian brew called Ayahuasca (aka yage, daime, or vegetal). From what I understand, Matthew's project deals with the cultural politics surrounding the church's struggle to maintain its authority and authenticity among the splinter churches that have sprung up. All this very intriguing and I can't wait to hear what he finds out while there.

Purpose

2006-06-16T12:07:00.000-05:00

The main purpose for this blog is to keep me sane while I move with my family to the Amazonian city Rio Brano. Now, Rio Branco isn't quite what one might envision when thinking of an "Amazon city". You might picture jungle thickets, grass huts, and naked indigenous people digging for tubers. Not exactly! Rio Branco is a bustling city of almost 300 thousand boarding Bolivia and the Peruvian Andes. The trick for me is to figure out how to acclimate myself, our 2& 1/2-year-old and 4 month old daughters to a foreign country. I feel a bit anxious, not knowing which vaccines to get them, how old the children need to be to receive the needed shots, and what will the water be like? Potable? I'm sure they will have bottled water at a fair price…hopefully! Today the real (pronounced ree-al) exchange rate is 2.28 to 1 US dollar... Not bad, we should be able live comfortably on the grant money and the various other contributions we have secured. Six more weeks here in Charlottesville, Virginia, then four weeks in California before jetting off to Sao Paulo where we will stay for couple of days before flying into the upper north-west region of the Amazon.