Xmas in Brazil

The family I'm staying with is really wonderful. Caring, attentive, loving and happy, when they gather together one can really feel a strong bond beyond reason. The matriarch, a 95-year-old who remains the center of attention, holds together a group of sons and daughters, wives and husbands, and grandchildren, who really enjoy each other's company.

One of my favorite family members is Edson. My first night in Rio, at a rodizio de pizza ('cycle of pizzas'), Edson, also known as Bruce Willis, immediately befriended me although we couldn't understand much of each other's language. At following gatherings I taught him some English, and he taught me that old people can still be cool. 

He doesn't like Christmas that much though. At his mother's 95th birthday some weeks ago after an emotional song and ritual around her, Edson came to me, holding back tears with a cigarette, and said (my translation), "I hate Santa Claus. He's a motherfucker." Elaborating, he explained that 'Papai Noel' makes him spend all kinds of money on presents, while Santa himself spends nothing. "Is that fair? That's not just."

Nevertheless we all enjoyed Christmas. About 16 of us joined together in a small apartment, the boys in the 'back,' a small courtyard/storage area drinking beers, and the women tended to their mother and the food. The radio lost its MPB station so someone turned it to a house/trance station. Being intimately familiar with electronic dance music, I found this very strange and a little inappropriate, but I realized that the majority of them had little or no idea what it was. It was just an exotic beat, "like disco, musica de sapo" as Edson thought. Nearly every old person danced to it at one point or another. After a few beer and laughs, some food and a little rain ("from our Lady and Lord, it purifies the spirit. I have no problem with the rain" said Edson), it was finally midnight and time for presents.

Waiting for presents

I really like giving presents better than receiving them, I have a hard time knowing how to react. I actually didn't expect anything at all, but got a good haul. I'm pretty sure what I gave was well received as well. The core members of the family had a secret santa, 'amigo oculto,' and it was during this that for the first time I saw someone cry with joy after receiving a DVD.

We got home around 2 or 3AM, then played video games. The next morning, Christmas morning, each person got up at his own pace and after more video games we slowly made our way back to the previous night's apartment for a leftover lunch. It was like the party was already over, like Christmas had already passed, and we were just there to finish up the food. Very different from the American tradition, even with all the TV time.

Feliz Natal!

A nice picture of a nice waterfall I visited to make you northerners jealous

Merry Christmas!

Xmas works differently here. They don't have real pine trees, and the whole holiday seems to be a little bit less of a big deal. More like a run-up to Reveillon, the real holiday everyone waits for.

I think its usual for people here to stay up late on Christmas Eve, until midnight, then give out the presents (the family I'm staying with has a secret santa kinda arrangement). What happens next, I am not sure, for it has not happened yet!

Happy holidays! Enjoy the snow if you have to!

Lapa

Lapa in the daytime

There is a neighborhood, next to the center of Rio, called Lapa. I have mentioned it before. It is a neighborhood whose incredibly poorly-translated magazine heralds as a 'center of democracy.' I have had a friend tell me this too, while stumbling around its streets, which I must admit were filled with a fairly diverse group of people.

Lapa is were Rio goes to get drunk as hell on the cheap. There's samba too. Every weekend, Friday especially, a variety of municipally sponsored street vendors open onto the street, spilling their podrãos and drinks into the mouths of the waiting. A tallboy of beer is 2 or 3 reais, and a toxicity-strength caipirinha is about R$4, which my friend thinks should be illegal. There are lots of bars and music venues, but most people just stand around drinking, often well into the daylight hours. If this is the center of Brazilian democracy, then I guess the country is surprisingly well-off despite all its problems, the least of which is a constant hangover.

Recent weekends have seen my repeated appearance there, so it has lost a little of its novelty for me, but is still a solid backup for when other plans fall through. After an interesting day involving mistaking a heavy opioid for asprin and a subsequent attempt to boogieboard, I met up with a Swedish friend and bought beers from a guy with a cooler on a motorcycle, right in front of the cops. It was then that I realized I wasn't in Kansas anymore.

We proceeded though the growing mass of revelers and sambistas to a pool hall where they only had extra-huge and extra-tiny tables for some reason. Stopping at several places on the way and having been overtaken first by the hare-krishna then a whole other bunch of hippies, we lost part of our group so headed to a horrible club where I paid money to listen to music I hate.

I actually really dislike funky, I think it's among the worst music there is. No offense to anyone or anything, but it's stupid, violent and sexist. The dance is stupid too, but kinda sexy when girls know how to do it. Just sayin', and it's not like I think square dancing is any good either.

I don't remember what happened next, but then I was on the beach with a headache and a broken boogieboard and it was afternoon. I'm pretty sure I had avoided calling for Raul. The camelôs had inspired me with a way to get more ESL students; I was to write on a white shirt 'tem ingles aqui' and walk up and down the beach yelling 'Aaaaulas de ingles! Aaaaulas de ingles!' while giving out my business card. I thought it was brilliant, but my friend said I had better shed all sense of shame before trying it.

Looks innocent, doesn't it?

Back in Lapa that night, I learned that prostitution is a legal profession in Brazil. Get this: they have working papers, legal protections, and retirement! They can retire and get a pension! Amazing.

At was turned out to be a nearly gringo-only event, I spoke with a lovely Californian girl who sympathized with the minor culture shock I was describing to her. "You have to be lazy. Force yourself to do nothing," she said. "That's the only way to survive." That's actually pretty true. Coming from a place (NYC) where everyone cares so much about everything they paradoxically go to great pains to show themselves as the opposite, I have been undergoing a shock of sorts here in Brazil where no one cares much about anything, and excel at avoiding responsibility, especially politically or bureaucratically.

When the place filled up and the cariocas began to outnumber the gringos, I was thankful for being able to amuse myself with mild drunkenness while not understanding anything anyone is saying. I've gotten excellent at pretending to understand Portuguese, and I actually spent about five straight hours today doing that with someone I had just met. But if anything, if I fail to learn Portuguese, I will remember Brazil as the place where I learned that it's ok to look at girls' butts, since everyone here does it and for very good reason. Besides, some are so hemispheric you don't have much of a choice.

The next morning I stumbled back into Lapa. Why I was awake, hungry, and not yet sober, back in the place I had been a mere 6 hours before, was beyond me. I think it had something to do with a waterfall. The pee on the streets was still fresh and small groups of people were still drinking...at 8AM, with the sun already beaming down like a thousand lasers from space.

Interesting!

For all of you noobs out there, here's 60 Minutes on Brazil. Pretty accurate I'd say!

Brazil - U.S. Military Ties

Unrelated picture of some people surfing.

Because I'm a nerd, this is the kind of stuff I'm into.

Otherwise, I am very happy because my hat arrived from NY, and I got a nice Christmas card from a good friend of mine. A real post will come soon, I promise!

Preview

To hold y'all off until I get a real post written up, here's a spookified preview of my next article for the Rio Times:

Pew pew pew pew!

Despite Brazilian Sensitivity on Sovereignty, Military Cooperation with the U.S. Increasing.

In early 2010, President Lula deemed relations with the U.S. of “enormous unexploited potential” according to diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks, a sentiment now echoed by President-Elect Dilma Rousseff. Ms. Rousseff recently said one of her top priorities after taking office on January 1^st will be to visit U.S. President Obama to build closer ties between Brazil and the U.S., particularly on trade and human rights.

However, military ties between the two nations are already good and improving, a result of President Lula’s personal rapport with former U.S. President Bush and increasing trade across the equator. Last month, the U.S. participated for the first time in Brazil’s CRUZEX 5 or “Southern Cross,” South America’s largest simulated air warfare exercise. Held in Natal, CRUZEX is usually a participation of 3,000 airmen from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, France and Uruguay. But this year, Colorado Air National Guard Airmen were invited to work alongside pilots and crews from Latin America and France.

“We now have personal contacts with the participating countries,” said Brig. Gen. Trulan A. Eyre, the commander of the American forces. “If another partner country is in need, we now have face-to-face contacts with (representatives) from these countries.... We now have the type of partnership that whatever is needed, we will be there to support each other.”

Cooperation across a wide range of areas has seen quiet improvement since 2001 and is set to continue developing, according to other leaked cables. Military and law enforcement agencies from both nations now work closely together on counternarcotics issues, intelligence sharing, human trafficking and shipping container security. While collaboration in technical and operational areas such as these have progressed well, public acknowledgement and cooperation by the Brazilian government of the U.S.’s strategic concerns, such as Iran, nuclear proliferation and terrorism, has been lagging.

“Officially, Brazil does not have terrorism inside its borders,” reads a cable from late 2009. “In reality, several Islamic groups with known or suspected ties to extremist organizations have branches in Brazil and are suspected of carrying out financing activities. Although there is good working-level law enforcement cooperation between the U.S. and Brazil on terrorism related activities, the official position of the government is to deny that Brazil has any terrorist activity.”

Mmm oil om nom nom

Covering up potential links to terrorism might have links to what the American embassy in Brasilia called an “extreme sensitivity on sovereignty” on the part of Brazilian elite. New fears that the U.S. will prey on the enormous oil reserves off Brazil’s coast prompted efforts to increase federal control of mineral resources and have mixed with old anxieties that foreigners want to “internationalize the Amazon.” These fears pop up in Brazilian media and official statements, most strongly demonstrated when President Lula asserted, “the world needs to understand that the Amazon has an owner, and that is the Brazilian people.”

The re-establishment of the U.S. Fourth Fleet, mostly a peacekeeping and training force, also caused Brazilians anxiety, prompting an official inquiry by the Brazilian government. While such concerns might be political theatre, they do have the potential to disrupt future cooperation. In Brazil’s political culture these kinds of fears are not uncommon.

However, a meeting between U.S. Ambassador Sobel and the Chiefs of the three Brazilian Armed Services in early 2009 indicated that behind the scenes, sections of the Brazilian military are willing to work extensively with the U.S. The fact that Boeing’s F-18 Super Hornet is the Brazilian military’s favored choice for the FX2 jet fighter competition despite the virtual certainty that the French Rafale will win for political reasons shows that ties between the U.S. and Brazilian militaries will remain strong.


Yes I know it's easy to see through the black-outs, its just for fun, chill out.

Articles

Hey y'all,

Here is an article by a friend of mine about a monthly event we went to in an amazing hostel in the favela, Jazz in the Maze. If you can read Spanish you should check it out! Actually it has nice pictures too so you should just click and see anyway.

And here is an article I wrote for The Rio Times, Rio's only English-language local news source. It goes along well with what I wrote about last time.

Yeah, so...enjoy!

Life and Violence

Ok so here we go, its been a busy week, Fluminense just won the Brazilian football championship, lots of things have happened and I'm behind on letting y'all know what's what. Let's crack a beer and get to work.

I've been teaching a couple of classes a week now, nothing serious, and I'm not sure the students like me. I talk too much and hate preparing lessons, especially since I'm paid very poorly. But now I started with a private student twice a week who pays three times more and likes to talk; he's a great, a contract lawyer at a downtown bank who's really, really into comics. Not just like "Oh I read graphic novels" or "I know all the names of Spiderman villains" but more like "I have 3,000 X-Men comics and 300 figurines I painted myself."

Lots of Brazilian nerds

Speaking of nerdiness, a few weeks ago I went to the Brazil Game Show, purportedly an exposition highlighting South American video game developers. It was actually completely dominated by Sony, hot dogs, and long lines. Overall it was underwhelming and crowded, and the convention girls were nothing special. They kinda looked depressed.

Kinda like Superman!

Then I went to the beach, swam in dangerous currents and got sunburned. Fortunately this gave me license to chill out only in my underwear at home, who readers who know me well will recognize as my favorite housewear. 

The next day I went up to the Sugarloaf, which is now what I call voluptuous girls as a term of endearment, and that was pretty neat as the first 'touristy' thing I had done really. The approach up the mountain is controlled by the military, and the previous week a gay man was shot by a soldier there (this was during the pride parade) for no reason. But then I saw some small monkeys ('Micu') and forgot about that.

The biggest news is all the violence and police/military operations that climaxed last week. As you probably have heard, the police invaded several slums in the north zone of Rio and will occupy them for some time. However this isn't really what affected or interested people here, and y'all didn't hear about it because of the latest bickering over in Korea.

It's kinda complicated, but partially the conflict is over the UPP, a 'peaceful police force' that was installed in several favelas around Rio. These new units are sent in to live with the locals, show the human and non-murderous side of the police to occupy and secure the slums after the murderous side has cleared out the bad guys. The governor started the UPP program to stop drug trafficking, but the dealers just decentralized and moved to other slums (the favelas are many and enormous. 1 out of 5 residents in the entire state of Rio live in a favela). Many of the gang leaders are in prison, but just give orders and command from there. When they heard that they were going to be transfered to federal prisons out of state, where life for them would suck a lot more and they would lose control of their gangs, they basically ordered their lackeys to start firebombing cars, attacking police posts and causing mayhem.

This is what started a two week orgy of violence and paranoia. Every day more and more reports of attacks on cars, busses and trucks came in, and people started staying in and not going to work. The metro was seen as safe so was crowded over capacity, which I remember sucking exquisitely. 

BOPE being badass

Most people said it was just a matter of time before this happened, as Rio's huge poverty and crime problems need to be tackled before the mega-events of the World Cup and Olympics. So for the next few days there were tons of cops everywhere, helicopters flying low, and other shows of force; down where I and most gringos and rich people live, there wasn't much except a few shootings and arrastaos. But in the north zone the BOPE, police and marines supported by APCs quickly expelled the gangs from several key neighborhoods. Some BOPE members even complained that the dealers weren't putting up enough of a fight.

Obviously a lot of bad guys got away, and they left lots of drugs (3 tons of marijuana and 300 kilos of coke) and guns behind. So where did they go? Probably to Rochina, one of Rio's largest and most famous slums, inconveniently located very close to Leblon and Ipanema, the richest neighborhoods. (Check out this video I took of a bomb scare in Ipanema.) At this point the gangsters are squeezed and trapped, and could get more dangerous. The two main factions, the Red Command and Amigos dos Amigos, are rumored to have formed an alliance against the cops (with whom they themselves had a treaty of sorts with). NEM, the supposed leader of Amigos dos Amigos that rules Rochina, controls the distribution of cooking gas there and buys silence by being a community benefactor and sponsor for the residents. He was involved in a nasty shootout in the Intercontinental Hotel a few months ago that highlighted how the gangs often paid off the police, how some BOPE members might be involved with the Amigos, and how a whole different problem of 'milicias' of ex-cops run extortion rings and protection rackets.

Just this is a tiny fraction of what's happening, it's all pretty confusing, and only the beginning. What is clear is that the government is cracking down hard, and enjoys huge popular support. Police and military convoys get cheered in the streets, not something you would expect from a county with a history of military dictatorship. The people are tired of the gangs and crime and trafficking, and do not mind when innocents die by police bullets. Some think the favelas should just be razed. This raises the very important issue of potential "fascism against the poor," as a friend of mine put it. BOPE shoot first and ask questions later; the people and politicians look the other way because they just want something done.