100 Weeks in Brazil

Week 81: Trip to Foz do Iguaçu Day 3

2012-03-07T22:05:00.001-04:00

We stayed at the Pousada Caroline while in Foz do Iguaçu. This little hotel was located on a street just off the main highway that led to the national park. Rebecca found this hotel through www.hostelfinder.com. The hotel looks like a small house from the front, but extends back and down the lot. Most of the rooms have a king size bed made from two twin mattresses placed together and a bunk bed. We rented three apartments, one of which had enough beds to sleep seven. This was not advertised on the third party websites, and we probably could have fit all of us into two rooms. The arrangement we had ended up working well for our family.

Besides being cozy, the staff their were quite friendly and a few of them spoke English. The evening clerk was actually from California. Guests could also make reservations and pay for tourist attractions through the hotel front desk, usually at a discount. They also had a shuttle service and tours available. Like most hotels in Brazil, they also had a nice continental breakfast featuring an abundance of cakes and breads. We ate on an outdoor porch and we enjoyed watching the sparrows snag bits of cake from abandoned plates.

Foz do Iguaçu National Park

The falls national park was about a 25-minute drive from the hotel. Personal cars are not permitted in the park, so we parked in the park's lot and went to the ticket booth to pay the admission fee. We then hopped a bus that took us to the start of the main trail along the canyon overlooking the falls.

It has been said that when Eleanor Roosevelt visited Iguaçu Falls, she said, "Oh, poor Niagara." And she was right. These falls are super big and stretch along for several kilometers. From the Brazilian side, we were able to get good views of the various steps of the falls as they pour endlessly and tremendously into the river canyon. They are pretty amazing. It took us about almost two hours to hike from the beginning of the trail to the main Devil's Throat, the most famous and largest drop. The trail was paved and had a good rail. There was also a restroom and snack stand about half way and at the end of the trail.

At the beginning, we saw several coatis, which are the South American equivalent of a raccoon. They seemed to be fairly tame and they got very close to park visitors. Several signs advised us to not feed them, though the coati seemed quite capable of finding the garbage and crumbs around the snack stands. Joseph was particularly interested in the coatis, and took several photos.

About hour an hour into our hike, Abby was getting pretty grumpy. It was a long walk, I didn't bring enough snacks, and all there was to see were a bunch of trees and waterfalls and no animals. Rebecca asked her what was wrong, and she explained that she wanted to know where the zoo was since we said we were going to Igua"zoo" today.

There were all kinds of butterflies and colorful moths along the trail feeding on the various flowers. I managed to get a photo of this red-bottomed moth when it was resting on a hand rail.

We even saw a yellow-billed toucan, the largest of the toucan species living in the park.

My nephew sent us a Flat Stanley, and we took him with us on our adventures. He here is with a view of the Devil's Throat.

We finally arrived at the exciting part, the Devil's Throat, where a walkway had been built to take visitor's out over the falls. Here we got wet from the spray and got a good look at the immense wall of water pouring into a giant pit. It was also nice to feel the cool spray on this warm and sunny day.

The trail ended with an elevator ride up to the top of the falls. Each step up gave a different view, and it was quite extraordinary.

The river above the falls is very wide and gives an impression of calm before the fall.

We had intended to buy lunch on the park, but the selection was poor, lines long and food was expensive, so we caught the bus back to the visitor's center, and then walked through a little exhibit that explained the natural and culture history of the falls, showing that they were formed by a series of volcanic eruptions and lava flows and the wildlife in the area, and various human occupations.

Parque dos Aves

Our next stop was the bird park, an aviary with hundreds of birds representing Brazilian species located just across the street from the national park visitor's center. We didn't realize how close the bird park was, and I drove and paid for parking again and thus supporting the local economy.

Surprisingly, there was no food at the parking lot snack stand, so I bought everyone some ice cream from a guy selling ice cream. I though this would sustain us over until we reached the park's snack stand. Unfortunately, that was situated at the end of the tour, and it took about two hours for us to walk through the park.

The kids saw some brown flamingoes and called them "lamemingoes" because they weren't pink. I was surprised at how long the trail through the bird park lasted. Highlights for me were the walk through aviaries with several roaming birds, seeing several species of toucans, and the aviary with about 30 or so macaws. They even had enough room to fly.

Zoológico Bosque Guaraní

The zoo in Iguaçu is small and underfunded. It was built in 1996, and looks like no money has gone into it since then. The animals featured were local to this region of Brazil and Argentina. The admission is free, and that might be part of the problem. The kids complained about not having had lunch and called us horrible. Rebecca responded by letting them know they were the most entertaining things in the zoo. We also had an interesting discussion on the engineering needed to make a bra work without a center strap.

We parked on the street along the zoo since it had no lot. I had some trepidation about doing so, but there really was no other place to park. When we returned to the car, Jacob noticed that a piece of the roof rack was missing. It appears that someone may have been trying to remove the bars but after jabbing a screwdriver in the holes and finally pulling off the shield, discovered they didn't have the tools to complete the job. It's too bad that they didn't leave the cover. Now I will need to find one.

Dinner was at a pizza rodizio featured in the Quatro Rodos guide book. It was inexpensive and included ice cream, pasta, fried chicken and French fries. The pizza was mediocre even by Brazilian standards, but the kids were too hungry to complain. We also were seated at the table next to the front door. It was a tight fit and one chair was on the doorway ramp. All the other tables were reserved for a tour bus group. Fortunately, we finished up and got out just as the bus was unloading.

That evening, I played with the younger four kids in the hotel pool for about an hour. It's a really narrow, long pool, and we managed to keep ourselves entertained by going back and forth in various manners. I also pulled out the waterproof camera, and we took some underwater photos. This camera was very handy for our ride to the falls the next day.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Foz do Iguaçu

Week 81: Trip to Foz do Iguaçu Days 1& 2

2012-02-19T21:58:00.001-03:00

We've been telling people that we are driving down to the Iguaçu Falls for Carnaval, and they all think we're crazy; but after going to Salvador last year, a 20-hour trip to the south doesn't seem so bad. We might even bump into a few people we know down there as well since this is a popular travel destination.

We actually managed to get everyone up and out and on the road by 6AM on Saturday. That was our goal. We made good time driving today. The roads were dry, sky was sunny, and traffic wasn't heavy. Like we noticed when driving to Salvador, most of the main roads are fairly well maintained. We only encountered one section of road that was pretty bumpy for about an hour, but still very passable. One nice thing about the southern route through Goiana is that much of the route was four-lane divided highway as well. We were able to make it to our destination in 12 hours just as we had planned.

I drove through a highway police checkpoint today. They waved a truck to the side and I didn't realize that they wanted me to stop as well. They chased me down, pulled me over, and since the police cars always have lights flashing and rarely use sirens, it took me a little while to figure out that they wanted me to stop. Of course, they asked me why I didn't stop and asked for my registration papers, which I fortunately remembered to grab just before we left that morning. I apologized stating that I misunderstood them since I had not seen this kind of thing before, then they let us continue.

I saw a maned wolf dead on the side of the road about an hour south of Goiana, so I turned around to get a picture. These are an endangered species largely due to human encroachment and destruction of habitat. I never thought I'd see a wild one even though it was dead.

We even found the hotel easily as it just off the highway in Presidente Prudente, which was convenient since the 3G was not connecting on our devices. I have a prepaid plan, and the iPad says there's a signal, but nothing was working. Rebecca found this hotel through www.decolar.com.br, a travel website for flights, hotels and car rentals in South America. The reception staff were very helpful and put us into an apartment suite and two double rooms, but there were enough beds in the rooms to sleep 11 people. We have learned that the moderately priced hotels are quite basic in comparison to the hotels in the U.S. At least this one had free WiFi and a good continental breakfast.

Here are a couple photos of the rooms:

Sunday morning after breakfast as I was taking a couple photos of the hotel, I noticed the large sign advertising the amenities.

I didn't recognize the center word, but was able to make a match with a sign in the bathroom.

This particular tool is used to was one's undercarriage so that you can comply with the request to not flush the piece of blotting paper provided for wiping down the toilet. I also found the sprayer useful in pushing floaters down with the flush.

We planned for our second day on the road to be only 8 hours, and once again we made good time and reached the city of Foz do Iguaçu by 4:00PM. Along the way, I was struck again by the beauty of Brazil. We also passed huge tracks of land devoted to growing sugar cane and soy beans.

As we got further south, it started to look more like the American Midwest during the fall. The soybean fields were brown and harvesters were out collecting the crops. Unlike the central part of Brazil, the south has been experiencing a drought, and the ground and plants looked dryer.

Driving the highways of Brazil is probably a lot like what driving across the United States would have been like 50 years ago. There are not freeways, divided highways are rare, and one gets to see a lot of the countryside. Along the way are "postos", which are large truck stops with gas stations, restrooms, restaurants and gift shops. Some of the older ones are pretty worn down, but there are a few newer establishments like this one, Posto de Madeira, that are quite nice:

What made this one particularly fun was the children's area complete with fish, ducks, chickens, horses, rabbits and guinea pigs.

And there no locks on the cage doors, so it was also a petting zoo.

Week 60: TDY to Rio: Along Copacobana Beach

2011-10-05T21:49:00.001-04:00

After work the second day, I decided to walk back to my hotel on Copacobana Beach from the Consulate. The cab took about ten minutes, and I noticed a very nice walking and biking trail, so I figured I could probably make it in about an hour on foot.

Just up the road from the Consulate, I saw a group of demonstrators outside of a bank. The public bank employees had started a national strike and were protesting outside of a private bank office. All the banks closed for about four weeks due to the strike.

After observing the demonstration for a few minutes, I continued on my walk, crossing over bridge over the highway. The Museum of Modern Art was just on the other side and a giant spider sculpture.

My walk also took me past the WWII Memorial and several very cool trees and plants.

I was very impressed by the beauty and cleanliness of the beaches I walked past. Along the way I noticed these large lids covering very large garbage cans, so I stopped and took some photos.

After I took a couple of photos of these large garbage containers embedded in the beach, one of the garbage collectors stopped to ask me why I was taking pictures of the cans. He thought maybe I had seen something wrong, or was doing report of some sort. I assured him that I found the cans interesting since I had never seen that kind of disposal unit before. He told me that his boss had seen them in France and brought them here. He also showed me how they work. Very big and deep cans. Truck removes the liner.

I saw several groups of children playing soccer, groups of men playing volleyball, and even some foot volley. That is amazing. There was even a large crew shooting a scene for a film or television show.

I did manage to walk back to hotel this afternoon at least partway. I followed the trail through the park and got to the Porcão churrascaria at the end of the park. I had brought my camera to take pictures. Unfortunately, the sky was overcast so the light wasn't as good as yesterday evening.

After about an hour of walking, it got dark and the trail ended, so I got a cab to bring me to the Copacobana each. Even after my walk, the cab ride still cost me R$20.

Tonight I got several photos of some of things I thought were interesting, like garbage cans and restrooms.

I had two more interesting conversations with street vendors later. I was looking for souvenirs to bring home. I bought batik shawls for the girls (made in Indonesia with Brazilian designs). I purchased those from two different vendors. The second guy had a shawl of the same pattern but better quality of s shawl I had purchased earlier. He did a straight trade with me for the better one.

I tried to find a T-shirt for Sam, but there was nothing his size. I stopped and talked to one T-shirt vendor and explained how the shirts they offered were mostly for woman because that is what sells. He then explained the sizing codes. Tank tops are one size because they stretch. Young girls wear them loose while their moms wear them skin tight.

As his grandkids packed up their wares, he got off on a tangent and explained to me why Muslims were ruining the world, Arab countries should be realigned, and oil reserves should be put in the control of Western nations. He only agreed with President Obama on th issue of not forming a separate Palestinian state. He repeated everything several times to make sur I understood his argument, and I think I got most of it. I even learned some swear words from him.

My last stop was with an artisan named Paulo from Pernambuco and his friend Tati from Rio. They both live on the street. He makes hats and bowls out of palm fronds. She paints idyllic scenes on white ceramic tiles while you watch. I just wanted one of his birds, and Paulo insisted that I watch Tati paint a tile. She was good, but I didn't want a tile. During this time we talked about music, culture and religion, and Tati and I helped Paulo learn a couple of English words for selling his goods. It was a fun evening. I net some nice folks.

The corn on the cob was tough and dry. Old corn. Feed corn. yuck.

Seeing them at the breakfat buffet reminded me of what the T-shirt had told me last night about American arrogance. He said Americans strut up to vendors and ask in English " How much is it" and he says "Quanto custo?" I think he was pleased or impressed to hear me speaking Portuguese.

Week 60: TDY to Rio: U.S. Citizen Services

2011-10-05T21:48:00.001-04:00

My other objective in visiting Rio was visit with the U.S. Citizen Services unit, also known as ACS (American Citizen Services). I have been serving as the ACS officer in Brasília for about four months. Rio has a high number of U.S. citizens passing through as tourists or living in that area, so they see more cases and wider range of ACS sevices than we generally get in Brasília.

Most often, the ACS services we do are routine: renewing or replacing passports, registering the births of children born to U.S. citizens abroad, registering deaths, and notary services. We also respond to emergencies like hospitalizations, contacting relatives, and responding to disasters. The most common emergency is a lost or stolen passport. As a comparison, Rio averages about one emergency passport per day, while Brasília does one every couple of weeks. Consular officers can also approve repatriation loans to help destitute Americans return to the United States and assist with the distribution of Social Security benefits to retirees. Consular officers also visit jails and prisons to check on incarcerated Americans. Not all of these types of cases were seen this week, but there were two types of services that I had not yet done.

One was a case of a man wanting to renounce his citizenship. Renunciation of citizenship is a serious matter, especially if giving up U.S. citizenship would leave a person stateless or without a country of citizenship. In this case, the man said that his US citizenship was preventing him from opening a foreign currency exchange account in a Swiss bank, that recent changes in US banking laws made it impossible for him to do business, and that he was against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He also complained about having to pay a significant fee to renounce citizenship.

Renouncing citizenship in this way is a two step process. At the consulate, the client states his reasons for abandiming citizenship during an intitial interview, and then returns at a later date after some reflection on his choice with the filled out paperwork and formally renounces citizenship in ceremony involving an oath. The paperwork is then sent to Washington, D.C., for review and a final decision at the State Department.

In this case, it became clear that he was prepared to argue his point and took a defensive stance. In the end, it's his choice as long as seems to be of a sound mind. (My colleagues told me about a regular visitor they get who wants to give up his citizenship so that the government would turn the chip off that was embedded in his head.) I also talked to him about how his choice would effect his children. I actually don't understand why someone would want to give their citizenship, especially after I have met with so many people who have made so many sacrifies in order to get American citizenship for themselves and their children.

On another day after a lunch, I went with the ACS officer and one of consular clerks to do a welfare and whereabouts visit for a child who had been taken by her mom from the U.S. without the dad's permission. They had not seen him since 2008, and this was the first meeting with a consular officer.

International abductions are complicated and emotional affairs, not only for the families involved, but also since the laws of different countries and international treaties. Cases can take years to come to a resolution, and even then may not result in a "happy" ending.

Anyway, it was an interesting visit. In these cases, consular officers are observers and do not advocate for the left-behind parent in the U.S, we are checking on the child. This time, we met at the mom's lawyer's office, and talked with them about school and home life. The girl seemed to be doing well, living happily with her mother, though she spoke about playing with her favorite dolls which were gifts from her father many years ago.

I don't have that much experience with these types of cases, but the few that have worked with involved a Brazilian woman that married an American man, and somewhere along the way they decide that they can't live together anymore, the husband gets a joint custody agreement that includes restrictions on travel for the child, and mom really wants to go back and live with her family, but won't go without the child, so she takes the child with her. Since she has broken U.S. law, she can't return with the child to the U.S., and Brazil favors mothers in custody cases, so she stays hidden in Brazil. It can be very traumatic and rarely has a clear or clean resolution. I don't know why the parents couldn't resolve their differences well enough to allow the child to visit dad (or mom).

Week 60: TDY Trip to Rio de Janeiro: Immigration Visas

2011-10-05T21:43:00.001-04:00

It's the end of the fiscal year, so our sections were using funds to do exchanges and temporary duty assignments within the mission. These exchanges help to foster innovation and establish uniform practices through the sharing of ideas. I was fortunate to go, and I arrived Tuesday morning in Rio de Janeiro for a three day assignment with the U.S. citizen's services (ACS) and immigrant visas (IV) units to observe and learn about services that we don't do as often in Brasília. In this article, I will focus on some of experiences with IV work.

The consulate building in Rio is the oldest of the four U.S. mission structures in Brazil. It was the original embassy chancery before Brazil moved it's federal government to Brasília 50 years ago. Rio is a beautiful city, and I could understand why so many Brazilian government leaders were not enthusiastic about the move to the interior wastelands.

Visa interviews for Brazilians moving to the U.S. to live as legal permanent residents are only done in Rio, and all the interviews are all done by one consular officer. Every day, Rio has 20 to 30 appointments. This is one of the reasons why the immigration process takes a long time. Considering how long people wait to get appointments, it was surprising that there were six no-shows on the first day I was there.

Most immigration visas are given to family members of citizens, though are a limited number given for professional workers, refugees, and some other special categories. While in Rio, I was able to speak with people who were to be reunited with their parents, cildren and/or spouses. I also got to observe interviews for the fiancé visas, a type of non-immgrant visa that turns into a immigrant status after the marriage in the U.S.

We use the interviews to confirm the relationship, check that all the documents are complete, and make certain that there no ineligibilties exist that prevent the beneficiary from receiving a visa.

The consulate receives large packets from the U.S. that are full of paperwork and documents. Often, the first chance a consular officer gets to look at the packet is just before the interview. Prior to the interview, the applicants meet with a visa clerk to have their fingerprints taken and to check that they have all the required documents, like the police background checks, financial records, and medical exam.

Lack of documents is the primary reason for a delay in getting the visa For example, the first couple we saw was fairly routine. They met while doing studies in Spain, but she did not turn in a police background check report from her time in Spain, so the case was put on hold. Another case failed to get the medical exam done before coming for the interview. Another group was delayed because the sponsor did not send updated financial records showing the ability to support another household member.

Confirming possible ineligibilities is another reason for the interview, and why petitions get delayed or denied. We had several cases where the beneficiary had overstayed or been in the U.S. without the right kind of visa, i.e. was an illegal immigrant. Depending on the type if ineligibilty, they are able to petition for a waiver. This easily adds another five to eight months to the case, and may not be granted if there is no hardship shown. For example, the father of the five-year-old U.S. citizen child we saw is likely to have his request approved, but the woman who said she is married to an U.S. citizen but hasn't been in contact with that man in five years probably won't. The waiver also involves an additional significant monetary and time costs for the applicant.

It was a very interesting couple of days for me, and I gained useful experience and knowledge as well as several more stories.

Week 58 & 38: Going to the Notary

2011-10-03T21:16:00.001-04:00

We went to the notary office to have a travel authorization document notarized that would give our daughter permission to stay in a hotel in the charge of other adults while on a school trip. This was my second trip to the notary, and I found it to be a pretty interesting cultural experience. Having authenticated documents is very important for the Brazilian way of doing business and legal matters.

Every day in my job, I have people pushing to me documents that have purple stamps and holographic seals that verify their authenticity. These are declarations of custody, employment, education, school enrollment, authorizations to travel, certified copies, etc. Each document is presented to demonstrate their ties to Brazil. In fact, recognizing real stamps from inkjet prints are one of the skills a consular gains to identify fraudulent documents. The other problem is knowing whether or not these documents are as authentic as the seals, signatures and stamps would have one believe. What does someone need to present to prove the authenticity of a document here? How much can someone pay to make any document "real"? I figured that a trip to the notary would also be a good career development trip. What I learned was that a cartório in Brazil is quite different from going to a notary in the U.S.

On my trip to the cartório on 27 April 2011, I wrote a few paragraphs intending to post them sooner. I took photos on my trip in September. The two experiences were similar. Here is my account:

Cartório de Registro

Today I am sitting at the notary office waiting in line to have a permission to travel document authenticated so that my daughter can go on a school field trip to Cristalina next week. I take a number at the desk near the entrance. There are currently 60 people ahead of me in line. The number sign is beeping and calling the next person about every three seconds. There is a line of counters in front of the far two walls of the office from me. Behind the counters are the workers. Clients are standing at the counters, passing documents to the seated officials. I took a seat in the central waiting area with about 100 other people.

Fortunately, it's a pleasant day, and the fans are working to keep the temperature down. As with most things in Brazil, the hardest part was finding the actual location. I was unable to find an address on the Internet, and a colleague who had been here before gave vague directions ("Off the W-3 near block 503 or 504 in Asa Sul").

Rebecca dropped me off at the corner where we saw a 2º cartório. I knew that that was name for the official documents offices, but I did know what the numbers meant. It turned out that this cartório was the place to get official copies of civil records, like birth, marriage and death certificates. The receptionist instructed me that to get a document notarized, I needed to go to the 1º cartório, and she directed me down the street to Bloco 505. I got the general idea that I would find the notary office behind the building on the corner.

When I got to the building on the corner, paper signs taped to fhe windows of told customers that the office had moved to the back of the building and down the stairs to the basement. I continued walking and encountered a mass of people holding official papers waiting for official stamps and seals. I wonder how many of these people are going to be at my window in the coming weeks asking for visas? At the very least, this experience will give me some experience of being on the other side of the desk, looking at the government official, sitting in the crowd of clients waiting to be served, hoping that I won't miss the moment my number is called. 30 more to go.

I still don't know how much this service will cost. The pricing sign on the wall has numbers and services, but I really don't know what I am asking for in Portuguese. Will I pay R$2.50 or R$5.00? At the consulate, we charge US$50 to notarized a document. Since everyone here seems to be eager to have paper signed, it can't be that expensive. At least I'm not requesting certification of a sale, because those fees are 10% to 30% of the value of the sale. There is a cashier booth on the left side of the room. When does someone pay for the service?

Just 10 left. The line is moving very quickly. This seems to be a very efficient process. My wife is not here yet since she had to make a trip to the school to pick up the younger kids. Can a father really give permissions for his daughter to travel without the mom being present? I guess I'll find out soon.

It is my turn. My entire wait here has been less than 30 minutes. At the counter, the official asks to see my identity documents to register me with their system. I then present the form, which I sign, and then the clerk puts a stamp next to my signature stating that he compared it to my identity documents, and inserts the edge of the paper into a large electronic stamping machine that places a dated stamp on the paper. He then passes the paper to a man sitting at a desk behind the counter whose job it is to initial the seals. He is the notary. I am then am told to go and pay the fee of R$2.50 and return with the receipt and pick up my document.

Here's a photo with the personal information blocked out:

Since that day, I have actually met a couple of notaries and owners of cartórios during visa interviews. It's an interesting line and work, and can be quite lucrative. (We had a cartório owner present income tax documents claiming millions of reais in income. Brazilians have a tendency to under-report, so he definitely was making a nice living.) Having authenticated documents is key to conducting business here, and the only way a person can have an authenticated document is to go to the official cartório offices in their neighborhoods. I also now know that even if the stamps may be real, the information on the document can be easily fabricated and not necessarily verified. I was able to give permission for my daughter to travel without even presenting evidence that I was her father or even a custodial guardian. An interesting experience, and definitely one that a person should do to see what Brazilians face in their lives.

Week 57: Brasília Burning

2011-09-17T22:26:00.001-04:00

On Wednesday afternoon, we went to the church for a baptism. On the way, we noticed several large plumes of smoke rising from the near horizon. And those pillars of smoke got larger as we approached the building. The photos here were taken from the parking lot.

The scrub brush fields near the church were on fire. We could see large flames reaching up into the trees and also a line of flames expanding. A very large area had already burned leaving a huge expanse of blackened earth. This is an area that is part of the Botanical Gardens of Brasília, and the fires burned a very large portion of the Gardens.

In the left side of this photo, there are the outlines of two men fighting the fires. The had very long poles with a flap of rubber and were using them smother flames. They looked like they were using giant fly swatters. I have never seen a tool like that used in fire control before. I didn't have my good camera with me so I was unable to get a close-up shot. We could also see stream of water being sprayed on flames that were consuming trees close to the school that is next to our church building.

About an hour and a half later, all that was left were a few smoldering patches near us, but there were clearly more fires burning in the distance.

On the way home from work Thursday evening, I could see a ring of fire along the ridge surrounding Lago Sul. It was an impressive sight, and I wish that I had had my camera with me.

Early Friday morning, Rebecca woke up because she was having difficulty breathing, a not uncommon occurrence due to her allergies, but then she realized that smoke had infiltrated the house, she got up to go through the house shutting windows and turning on fans. Our house and clothing smelled like we were on a campout.

I teach a religion class for high school kids before school, and all the seminary kids reported heavy smoke in their homes as well. Coincidentally, the topic of that morning's class was Sodom and Gomorrah, and the smoke and fires represented well the effects of fire and brimstone.

Other members of the Embassy had posted on facebook that CO alarms had gone off in some homes, and some families had gone to the Embassy to escape the smoke. The main part of Brasília is on the side of the lake opposite the location of the fires and up a higher so the smoke was not as intense there. A Brazilian friend that has lived in Lago Sul for 40 years said that he had ever seen smoke like this before.

I decided to take my camera with me to work and get some photos of the dense smoke. I could see that the smoke was even worse towards the neighborhoods closer to the JK bridge at the other end of the lake. I crossed over the middle bridge and stopped and took some photos from the ridge looking back towards Lago Sul.

The local news reported that well over one hundred fires were burning in the area. Though the total number of fires was less than last year, this was more than there had been at any one time. It has been very dry for several weeks, around 5% humidity, and it does not take much to start a fire. Some of them had started as controlled burns, others were the results of carelessness, like throwing cigarettes out a car window or from fireworks from various Independence Day parties. Even a ray of the sun passing through a broken piece of glass can get a fire going. The cooling of the air at night causes an inversion trapping the smoke near the ground and concentrating it in the low areas near the lake. When the sun rises, the air warms and the smoke rises and dissipates in the atmosphere.

By late Friday afternoon, the Embassy authorized voluntary evacuation to the higher areas of Brasília and approved hotel reimbursements. We chose to stay at home since we were busy preparing for birthday parties and half the kids were scattered at various locations about town. By the time we got everyone back together, it was late and we were tired, so we didn't want to bother with trying to find a hotel room and moving the entire family across town. With all the AC units running all day, the smoke seemed to have cleared from the bedrooms enough that we were able to sleep well.

Location:Brasília, Brazil

Week 56: Our New Post--Jakarta

2011-09-12T22:32:00.002-04:00

This week I received word on my new assignment, a job in the political section at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia. We are very excited about this assignment, and we will be arriving there about this time next year, hopefully not too many days after the beginning of the next school year.

The bidding process to get this job was a little harrowing for us since we really wanted to be sure to get posted somewhere that had a high quality school that would be able to serve the needs of all of our children. I also wanted to get a job that would give me a different kind of Foreign Service experience, and hopefully prepare me to bid for mission-wide leadership positions in the future. In addition, since one of our children has Asperger's syndrome, we had to have a response from the school that stated that could accommodate him.

For most entry-level officers looking towards their second tour, bidding involves being given a selection of posts and then narrowing down that list to a ranked number of choices where they would be willing to serve. For the late summer bidding group, we started with a list of about 254 positions put together by career development officers (CDOs). This is a group of FSOs whose have the job of actually making the assignments and filling positions. For most of the people in my group, they had to create a ranked list of 30 jobs that met the criteria available to that officer, mostly based on timing, such as, expected date of departure from current job, expected date of arrival at the new post, timing of training in between and home leave. Since my family has a child with special needs, we were required to do some extra work to put a list together, therefore we were told to only create a list of 15 positions.

The other critical factor used in making job assignments for ELOs is "equity". In other words, people who were currently serving in "high" equity posts, such as living in areas of the world considered very difficult or dangerous, were given priority over those with "low" equity. Brasília is considered a low equity post.

In putting together a bid list, we were also asked to write a bidding strategy and briefly describe the primary goals and concerns one took into consideration when putting that list together. For example, if someone had not yet served the required consular tour, then all of the bids must be on consular positions. Or if the needed language requirement had not yet been met, then language designated positions were needed. For me, the primary strategy was to find positions in a different area or with different types of consular work, and with a good high school program with AP courses. Not all posts have high schools, and many international schools only have IB (international baccalaureate) programs. The problem with IB is that to graduate with an IB diploma, the student must do the last two years consecutively at the same school, and my oldest son is doing his Junior year now.

Rebecca really enjoys figuring out these types of logic puzzles, so she got right to work creating our bid list. Based on timing issues, the list got quickly narrowed down to 60 positions. By eliminating Western Hemisphere jobs, the list narrowed again to about 30. When we began looking closely at schools, we ended up with a list of about 20 that looked like they would be able to provide the needed services. We then got to work searching for contact information and sending out e-mails to schools. It took several more hours of researching and contacting schools before we came up with a final list of 15, which we were instructed to submit with the high equity group. We felt that we had put together a well-thought-out list representing different types of jobs in various regions of the world, from those considered "easy" to difficult.

Then I got a message from my CDO stating that he was leaving for his new job, and I would be getting a temporary CDO during the bid process. I immediately contacted my new CDO, and waited for a reply, which didn't come until after the high equity assignments were given. An updated list of positions was posted, and we discovered that only four of our original list remained. Of that list, only one of the schools had responded to our e-mails. Even our back-up posts had been assigned. We were devastated thinking that all our work had been for naught.

Then we sat back down at looked at the remaining posts. I decided to resend e-mails to different persons than the designated primary contact. We also took a closer look at what it would mean to go to a language designated post and determined that we really could not do six months to a year in DC learning another language at this time. It really is challenging to find temporary, furnished housing for eight people, enroll kids in schools, and quite possibly have to live apart for a period of time. This narrowed our list down to three posts.

Then the day before the final list was due, one those posts was removed from the list. We were down to Chennai, India, and Jakarta. I wrote a longer description on why Jakarta would work best (no language training, good school, different kind of job), and sent the final list to my CDO and hoped that the list was sufficient.

My friends have asked, "so what posts were available?" The original list was quite varied with posts in nearly every part of the world. The U.S. has embassies and/or consulates in nearly every country in the world, and there are positions for service in the USA as well. Capitol cities and many major business centers have U.S. representation, and that was what was on the list. My original list had Paris, London, Brussels, Seoul and Rome, and also Chennai, Jakarta, Harare, Nairobi, and Dhaka. We also considered but didn't end up including New Delhi, Ho Chi Minh City, Phnom Penh, and Stockholm. Others we just couldn't consider due to timing or school issues: Pretoria, Jerusalem, Athens, Cairo, Istanbul, Ulaanbatur, Kathmandu, Kingston, Accra, Tijuana, Buenos Aires, Praia, etc. In other words, a U.S. Foreign Service Officer is expected to be worldwide available, and the possibilities of service are vast and challenging. I think that this will be an interesting career.

Week 23: Road Trip to Salvador Bahia, Day 5: Salvador

2011-09-12T21:11:00.000-04:00

We were awakened just before dawn by spray coming in the windows, thunder and drips from the ceiling onto our bed. An unexpected storm was raging outside, churning the sea and blowing water into the house. I moved through the house closing windows, but it was too late to prevent the floors from becoming flooded. The windows were also warped from the years of being near the ocean, so that didn't help keep the rain out either. The storm also blew out the power.

We were glad that the gardener, Ronaldo, came in early to check on us, and then get around to matter of getting the power back on, which didn't happen until the next day. It turned out that a main switch out by the road caught on fire and needed to be replaced. The challenge for Ronaldo was to find the part and then get the public utility workers to come to the home and install the part.

While Ronaldo worked on the house, we went to the old city of Salvador, the area called the Pelorinho. This was the square used by slave handlers to publicly whip and punish disobedient slaves. Here there are several museums, churches, restaurants and shops. It's also a good place to go to see a capoeira demonstration or hear some live music. We hired a guide, our home owner's nephew, Noah, to help use find our way around for the day. This was the only day this week that we didn't get lost.

Igreja de Ordem Terceiro de Sao Domingo

There are at least three large 18th century and 19th century churches positioned at the corners of the Pelorinho. The first one we visited was the Church of the Third Dominican Order. This church had elaborate paintings and sculptures depicting various stories from the scriptures and the lives of the saints. In true Portuguese tradition, they preferred the bloody stories and show them in all their graphic details.

These old churches also often have a museums of religious art. The ceiling in this church has an expansive painting. One our favorite pieces was this diorama with a giant Christ child and various scenes of from Christian history.

African Museum at the Medical School

A short walk from the church is the oldest medical school in Brazil, and this school also has a museum dedicated to the African history in Brazil. Brazil was the largest importer of African slaves, and their influence is very strong on Brazilian culture, especially in Salvador. At this museum, we learned a lot about Condomblé, a religion with African roots that worships various gods representing various natural phenomena and personalities called Orixás .

The museum also had on display art and handicrafts from Africa.

One of the most interesting rooms contained relief wood carvings of the Orixás. The carvings are exquisite and quite fun to see.

The main square of the Pelorinho

At the suggestion of our guide, we ate lunch at the Bahia Café and Hotel that was conveniently situated on the way to our next stop: the public elevator and the market. The food was tasty and featured a variety of local stews and fish dishes, as well as sandwiches that were palatable for the younger members of our family. Prices were decent, and the portions were large enough that most dishes could be divided between two or three people. My oldest son finished off a large, breaded and deep-fried fish on his own. This was definitely the best seafood we've had since coming to Brazil.

This little hollow full of street cats in the center of the Praça de Sé was one of the kids' favorite spots. There were at least fifteen cats of various sizes and colors feasting on leftovers people had left on the steps.

A view of the lower old city.

Mercado Modelo

A urinating demon (Orixú) and beverage dispenser.

The Mercado Modelo is the location of the main shopping area for tourists to find jewelry, pottery, musical instruments, artwork, local snacks, crafts and Brazilian souvenirs. This market was once a the main slave market for Brazil. The basement area was where slaves were held and was under renovation to become a museum at the time we visited. There are three levels filled to capacity with hundreds of shops and few restaurants, most selling variations of the same things that one can find at most Brazilian souvenir stands.

All the shopkeepers are willing to bargain and will often come down to about half the original asking price. They demonstrate the prices by typing the numbers into calculators.

This is also an area where tourists are advised to put cameras and other visible valuables away due to the chance of theft, especially when passing through the areas around the outside of the market.

Igreja de São Francisco

Our last stop before heading home was the church of São Francisco. This church is a great display of the riches during the golden period of Brazil's colonial days. The courtyard has two levels of walls adorned with white and blue tiles. The scenes depict stories of virtues and vices. These tiles were made in Portugal and then imported to Salvador.

The chapel is very ornate and nearly every carved piece is covered in gold leaf. It is a dazzling sight. One of my daughters said that even if the lights were out, the room would still glow due to the amount of gold.

A street leading up to the Pelorinho.

After visiting the chapel, I took a turn that led me out of the building and back to the square. I then waited to be joined by the rest of the family who had managed to find their way to the crypt before coming out. While waiting, a small VW Gol pulled up from the side street and parked. A couple of men got out and then opened the hatchback and pulled three men out, each them had their hands strapped behind their backs by zip ties. It seems that the three had been arrested for robbery by the plain clothes policemen.

We made it back home just after dark. A large toad that was feeding on flies greeted us in the carport. Unfortunately, the power was not yet restored to the house. They had been extremely busy responding to various service calls throughout the city. We managed to

Week 23: Road Trip to Salvador: Praia do Forte

2011-08-30T21:19:00.000-04:00

For our second full day in Salvador we went to Praia do Forte, an old fishing village that has been transformed into a resort town specializing in eco-tourism. Our friends said that this was a "must see" location. We chose to not stay overnight in this town because of the cost. As we were recovering from nasty sunburns from our previous day on the beach, we thought it would be best to explore some other types of sites on this day.

Castelo Garcia D'Avila

Praia do Forte got its name from this castle built on a ridge above the ocean. It's one of the original colonial structures in Brazil and was inhabited until the early 20th century. It is the oldest of the large colonial buildings in South America. It was surprisingly difficult to find. There were no clear directional signs pointing to the winding road just off the main boulevard to the village. There were very few visitors at the ruins the day we came.

The castle ruins are well-preserved, and the proprietors have installed stairs and platforms so that visitor's could go up to the upper levels. They have also re-built the chapel. One of my favorite details was the colonial era graffiti written on the walls.

The view from the castle was quite stunning, and it helped that it was an absolutely beautiful day. It was the middle of the dry season on this part of the coast. This location was clearly chosen for it's strategic vantage point. It would not have been easy to haul all of the stone and other building materials up to the top of this hill. Nearby the ruins of the main hall were the remains of footings from other structures, probably stables and various utility buildings.

The path to the castle goes through an amphitheater that encircles this amazing fig tree. Brazil has some pretty incredible trees, and they make great back drops for family photos.

The visitor's center had a model of the castle and some artifacts found during archaeological digs on the site. It also has a cafe and eating area for special occasions and a gift shop selling trinkets and paintings made by local artists.

Reserva Ecológica da Sapiranga
A short drive down the hill and under the main highway from the castle is the Sapriranga Ecological Reserve that is managed by the same foundation that does the castle. As with most reserves in Brazil, visitors are required to hire a guide in order to see the park. The guides typically are members of the families that live in the park and help to keep it preserved. This reserve also includes a small visitor's center with specimens collected in the park.

Our tour lasted just under two hours. We hiked from the visitor's center to the river and back. It was a little late in the day to see much wildlife, but along the way we saw a three-toed sloth, a green lizard, some very pretty butterflies, cool funnel web spiders, and lots of ants. I even got a glimpse of a ghost shrimp. Our guide also pointed out many neat trees and told us about some of the medicinal, food and other products made from the trees.

Sapiranga River

Praia do Forte Village
After a morning of hiking through a forest and exploring a castle, we were pretty hungry, so we drove back into the village to find a place to eat. Even though we were there during the heavy tourist season, most of the restaurants that open for lunch had closed and were preparing for dinner. In these resort towns, one of the wait staff will stand outside the restaurant with a menu and invite people to eat there. We were pretty hungry, so we stopped at the first one that looked open and said that it served Bahian dishes. They also had pretty, pink balloon center pieces on the tables. Like Brasilia, restaurant food in Praia do Forte was expensive, costing about R$25 and up per person. I enjoyed a nice plate of fresh fish. Abby and I shared some coconut water as well.

After lunch, we went to look at the nick-nack and art shops in town. A large black woman waved me over and grabbed my hand. She asked me if I spoke Portuguese and then started to compliment me and my family. Then she asked for some money. We had learned that it was common for people to ask for money in Salvador, but I had not expected to be grab and held ransom like that. I also wasn't feeling well due something I had eaten the day before, so I declined and wiggle loose from her grasp.

Souvenirs in Praia do Forte ran the full range in price and quality, and many of the items had an African influence since this is the part of Brazil where the African slaves were originally brought. This being a resort town, it kind of felt like walking through the main street of Disneyland with all of its shops and restaurants. There were even kids dressed in spooky costumes and scary masks running around and shaking rattles to earn a bit of money.

We finished our day at the beach and wharf at the end of the commercial district. The fishermen had pulled in their nets for the day, and a few families were enjoying the evening on the beach. The bars were setting up tables and chairs for the evening clientele as well. As a treat, we a found a self-serve, by the kilo ice cream shop. Brazilian ice cream comes in every flavor of tropical fruit and chocolate and lots of toppings. Generally, the ice cream at shops is made on location in small batches and is quite tasty. Mass-produced ice cream sold in the supermarkets is disappointing.

Week 55: A Couple of Thoughts About Being a Diplomat

2011-08-28T13:10:00.000-04:00

I had a couple of experiences this past week that I would like to share about being diplomat. I think that especially in light of the current budget debates in the U.S. and the fact there are congress people in key international relations committee positions that want to eliminate funding for U.S. diplomacy, it is good to share some stories on what diplomats do.

Last weekend, the duty officer received a called from distraught mother in the U.S. (The duty officer is the embassy or consulate employee that is "on call" to receive and handle emergency calls outside of normal operating hours, i.e. nights, holidays and weekends). The mother had not heard from her daughter for two weeks. Her daughter had moved to Brazilian with her husband and one-year-old son about six months, and it was their habit to call home about once a day. Obviously, the mother was very worried about the welfare of her daughter and decided to call the Embassy to get some help. The duty officer attempted to contact the daughter without success, and then passed the case to the U.S. citizens services unit on Monday.

The daughter and her family live in a small town several of hours away from the embassy, so we couldn't just drive to their home and knock on the door. When trying to call the phone number, we confirmed that the number had been disconnected. We then called the local police and thankfully discovered that no report had been filed on the daughter, but we still had not made contact with her. After thinking about this a bit and telling the mother that we were still trying, I asked if we could have the local police drive by the home. Addresses are not always reliable in Brazil, so maybe the local police would know the neighborhood. The police replied that they had planned on going near that neighborhood that afternoon, and they would check on the daughter.

About an hour later, we got a call from the daughter explaining that she had recently moved and had forgotten to tell her mom. I got permission to pass the new telephone information on to Mom. Mom responded with great gladness, and started crying since she was so happy to hear that her daughter was okay. I told her that it was just to be able to deliver good news. I don't know who else the mom would have been able to go to for help if she had not had the resources of the U.S. representation in Brazil.

I was also able to attend a reception hosted by some Brazilian lawyers and government officials who had participated in a U.S. sponsored visitors program. This event was to report on their activities and thank the U.S. Embassy for their support. I don't think the Embassy provided direct financial support for this trip, but did help them to make contacts, set up a visitation schedule and schedule visa interviews for the participants.

While visiting the U.S., they were taken to observe and learn about consumer protections and the way the U.S. judicial system works. They were very impressed by the small claims courts systems, mediation, the variety in the types of courts, and the transparency of the judicial process. Then they were discussing the various ways that they could push to enact reforms in the Brazilian judicial system, especially in relation to consumer protections. It was really quite exciting to see how enthusiastic they were to attempt to tackle some of Brazil's problems because they were able to witness something that functioned well, especially in relation to what they experience here.

Again, by attending the event, I didn't do much to change Brazilian judicial policy, but I showed that the U.S. government was still interested in encouraging them to bring protections and transparency to their own courts systems. If such changes can happen from within, then it would make it better and easier for Americans to conduct business, resolve family disputes and other legal matters in Brazil. U.S. diplomacy and exchange is what helped to bring this discussion about in the first place.

Diplomacy is slow and requires building relationships. It takes money, patience and time. The little successes that I see here in Brazil are the result of many years of investment of money and manpower. In my view, the only way to lasting peace is to continue to build friendships through diplomacy rather than through military intervention. It probably costs less and makes for stronger ties and fewer grudges.

Week 55: Dry Season Surprises

2011-08-28T12:21:00.000-04:00

It's another beautiful and sunny day in Brasilia. We have now been without a rain shower since June when we a morning's worth after a volcano eruption in the Andes, and everything is very dry. What is surprising to me is how many flowers there are still blooming. There are many trees in bloom and well-adapted some plants are to the dryness. We do have a lake nearby, so the water table is not too deep so that might explain how so many plants thrive here.

While watering the garden, I found this spiky-leafed plant. When I got a closer look, I saw the spider in the flower. Absolutely beautiful.

Last night at a friend's home, I met my son's AP biology teacher. He and his family just moved here from a small town in Illinois. During our discussion about living in Brazil, I was reminded about how much I like life sciences when his wife said that the main reason they came to Brazil was to see new ecosystems. I then mentioned that my backyard was a great place to observe the wildlife of Brazil, especially ants.

Here's a good view of the back of our house and the backyard. It's dry, dry dry. I am looking forward to the rains, which should be here in about 30 to 40 days.

Week 54: The Stray Cats

2011-08-28T11:13:00.000-04:00

Around Week 40: Since May, our family has been joined by a small family of stray cats. The mother cat is a Siamese mix and is very friendly and loves nothing more than to come into the house and hang out. When she first appeared at our front door, she was pregnant and apparently trying to find a place to have her kittens. We thought if we ignored her, she would go away, but she stayed. The kids decided to call her "Sagwa" after the Chinese Siamese cat from the PBS series by Amy Tan.

We soon decided that if we were going to have cat, we might as well give her some food. She was already helping herself to the garbage, so leaving some chicken scraps in bowl might prevent us from having to clean up after her scavenging. She disappeared for a couple days at the end of May, and the next time I saw her that first week of June, she was skinny.

Week 47: For about four weeks, we saw no evidence of the kittens. Then one day near the end of June at the back door, we encountered a weak, barely moving, black kitten and her mother. Thinking we should prepare a comfortable litter for them, we set out a basket with towel an set the kitten inside. Then maybe we could nurse this little one back to health. Sagwa nursed the baby, but that was the last time that we saw this kitten.

Week 48: About a week later, another little cat showed up at the back door. Rebecca thinks that Sagwa was attempting to acclimatize her kittens to people. I think they just wanted to get inside to spend the night in a warmer place. By the way, they have managed to get in and hide under beds long enough to be unnoticed for several hours. It's a big house with lots of rooms.

This little guy was definitely more spirited than his sister, stronger, and absolutely wants nothing to do with people. After a short chase through across the garage and driveway, I managed to corner him against wall and a bush. A couple days later, he appeared again, and after a chase, we caught him under one of the pool rafts. Throughout the chases, Sagwa mostly remained calm. She likes to be close to people and to have her fur stroked.

When the little cat finds an opportunity to dart away, he always dives through a hole under the fence. On the other side, we discovered an abandoned dog house where they have been living.

Our family has been debating on what name to call this cat. In honor of his spirit, I like to call him "Skeeter" or "Scrappy." My oldest daughter wants to call him "Sterling," a name that no one else really likes because it's too refined. The older boys tease her by calling the cat "Harry" after the beloved Harry Potter.

We aren't sure how many kittens Sagwa had, but only this one remains. Our gardener says that he saw three.

Week 50: Strange howling noises, much like those of a human child moaning and crying out, awoke me in the middle of the night. Remembering what I learned during biology class and from watching the Nature and National Geographic specials, I figured that Sagwa was getting started on the next batch of kittens. Though I had been thinking about taking her in to a veterinarian for a while, I had not actually been brave enough to test my Portuguese over the phone or the time to actually visit with one. The urgency of not wanting to have even more cats to care got me to finally go.

I spoke with a veterinarian a few days later, the one that has a clinic closest to us. Here in Brasilia, nearly every pet shop also has a veterinary clinic, and there is a pet shop or veterinary clinic in most of the shopping centers near our home. They deliver and pick up the animals, and sell most pet medicines over-the-counter. Rebecca and I just walked in on a Saturday morning and managed to get some time with the veterinarian between appointments, and she spoke some English. She gave us a quote of about R$600 per cat for spaying and neutering, and suggested that we bring the cats in to do some blood tests. This was a lot of money to spend to treat a couple of strays.

We also learned that there are several endemic diseases here that will kill cats, and the other babies may have been sick from birth. I bought a topical de-worming medicine, and then got some instructions on how to try and "tame" the little wildcat using canned tuna.

Week 51: A couple of weeks later, the little cat came into our home, and I managed to corner it in a bathroom and apply the medicine. When I let it go, he ran away and disappeared. I couldn't find him under the beds of any of the rooms, so I thought he had gone out the back door which I had left open. The next morning, the kids heard some mewing from the closet. The little guy had jumped up to a higher shelf to hide and ended up being trapped in there overnight.

Week 54: Rebecca started working as a mailroom clerk at the Embassy this summer, and through her job, she gets to meet nearly everyone that works there. One day, she was talking to one of the health clinic nurses, and found out that this nurse does volunteer work for a stray animal rescue and placement group. They spoke about our cats, and the next day, Isabel was at our home with her gear ready to catch the cats and take them to the clinic for the necessary surgeries. Since they are a non-profit group, the cost would be about one-third of the price quoted to me at the private clinic. I ended up giving an extra R$70 as a donation for their efforts.

Sagwa willingly went into her carrier, but the feisty kitten remained elusive. Isabel set the trap, and we waited. He actually sat and watched for several minutes, then went and inspected the cage. He went in, but never put enough pressure on the trigger plate to release the door. I don't think he was hungry enough. We even tried to put his mother out next to the other cage, and that lured him out, but by now he had no interest in the food. After about an hour of trying, we decided that we'll have to try this another day.

Isabel brought Sagwa back home the next day, tired and groggy. A large bare patch of fur exposed an incision painted white with antibiotic and glue prepared especially for stray cats. She stayed overnight in the utility room. I was to give some pain reliever and antibiotics once a day with her food. I don't know if she actually ate all of it herself, but the food was always gone, and she seems to be doing fine now.

The next night, the first that we let her back outside, Rebecca and I heard that strange, eery and human-like crooning of a cat. I was thinking that we had had Sagwa's uterus removed just in time. Looking out the window, it was hard to tell if the female cat was Sagwa, so I went outside with a cup of water. I didn't want Sagwa to get hurt if it was her. Turns out that two different cats were using our driveway as a trysting point, and the consequent spray of water spoiled their romantic activities.

A couple of nights ago, I sat near the food dish and pet Sagwa. The kitten eventually approached the food and then ran off, even though I was very close to the food. I was surprised he came so close, considering that the night before when I cornered him in my room, he was frightened enough to defecate. Every day, those two cats attempt to get in the house, and often manage to get inside. Sagwa can pull the screen door open at the back door, and with six kids, and five doors to the outside, they have plenty of opportunities to do so.

Week 23: Road Trip to Salvador Bahia, Day 3: Arembepe

2011-08-23T22:28:00.000-04:00

We found a home to rent from an American through the website Vacation Rentals By Owner, and website run by Homeway.com. The home was located on a beautiful, practically private beach in a gate community, and we were very pleased with the location and the price. With our family of eight, it is often hard to find suitable, let alone affordable rooms, at a hotel, and we have found some nice places in good locations through these websites.

After two long days of travel, we decided to stay put and enjoy the beach. The only thing we really had to do that day is do some grocery shopping. The thing we should have done was put on more sunscreen before spending hours out in the sun.

One of the reasons we decided to visit Salvador at this time of the years was to be able to see the baby sea turtles. January is in the middle of the hatching season, and at several locations along the beach we saw PVC poles marking the locations of nests. Every night, we looked out over our beach to see any hatchlings making their way to the ocean, but never saw them.

A few minutes after we started playing in the sand and catching little crabs and searching for shells, when Abby came running up saying she found a turtle. Of course, I didn't believe her because it was the wrong time of the day, and it just couldn't happen. Well, the little turtle she found must have been late out of the nest and had been injured by a bird. We cleaned it up, made sure that everyone got to hold it, and then we took down to the water and let the waves take it out to sea.

That afternoon, we went to Arembepe, a small beach town just a few minutes drive from our house. There we went grocery shopping and visited the Projeto Tamar facility and visitor's center. Projeto Tamar has locations all along the Brazilian coast tracking and preserving sea turtle nesting sites and feeding areas.

For us, it was interesting seeing the exhibits and comparing the various sizes and types of sea turtles. The highlight of the visit was definitely the hatchlings. Every evening during the hatching season, the workers at the Projeto Tamar stations release a batch of hatchlings that were rescued from a nest. These turtles had not made it out with the rest of their siblings during the night. The rescue and public education efforts of Projeto Tamar have led to an increase in the numbers of nests and numbers of turtles going to sea over the last 25 or so years.

We returned that evening for the releasing of that days hatchlings. Those little guys make a direct line towards the ocean. They are determined and struggled through obstacles like human footprints. It's amazing that something as big as a sea turtle can start out so small.

We also observed them opening a nest. The remaining turtles and eggs were counted. The ones that survived were then released to crawl down to the ocean. Later in the week, we visited the larger Projeto Tamar facility in Praia de Forte, but we preferred the more intimate and personal environment and smaller crowds at the Arembepe station.

Week 23: Road Trip to Salvador Bahia, Day 2: Seabra to Salvador

2011-08-23T21:23:00.000-04:00

Due to the rain and leaking ceilings, it was quite easy to get up early in the morning and be on our way. The road to Salvador passed through the Parque Nacional de Chapada Diamontina. This particular park is known for it's rock formations and waterfalls. It's also the location of Brazil's historic diamond mines. In order to hike through the park, one must use a guide, and one place to get a guide is at the French influenced town of Lencois.

Lencois is tucked away inside the park and is quite picturesque. There are several hotels, restaurants and shops that cater to Brazilian and international travelers.

Our drive east took up into the mountains, and along the way we passed several fruit stands like this one. The types of fruits and goods being sold at the fruit stands varied depending on the part of the country we were traveling through.

In order to slow traffic through towns, there are large, high speed bumps. Positioned at the speed bumps were boys and men selling nuts, fruits, candies, pop and other treats. Some people had also set up larger fruit and snack stands just past the speed bumps.

When we passed over the mountains, we entered a drier, more desert-like part of the country. Fields here were for cattle ranching rather than growing soy beans. This is the first part of the country that I had seen cactus as well.

It took about 8 hours from Seabra to Salvador. Traffic got more dense and the road became a divided four lane highway at Feira de Santana, a major crossroads city just west of Salvador. One of the things we noticed most is how different Brasilia is from these other cities. We felt like we were finally passing through the "real" Brazil.

Salvador is a major city that is built up the hills surrounding bays and inlets of the Atlantic ocean. The homes in the outskirts of town were stacked up the hills and lacked the stucco finishes of homes one would see in more middle-class neighborhoods.

As we drove further into town, the roads got bigger and faster, and we soon learned that directional road signs were often difficult to identify and follow. During our week in Salvador, we ended up getting lost every time we went into town. Each time we got lost, we became more confident as we figured out how to read the maps, recognize landmarks, and find our way through the maze of city streets and neighborhoods. But this first time we came into town was actually nerve-racking and a little frightening, especially after hearing all the stories of gang ambushes and car-jacking.

Somehow, we completely missed the spur to the airport that we were searching for and ended up down by the marina, on a one-way road, and not quite certain where to go. I panicked and when I saw a person dressed up like a tour guide, I pulled over and asked for directions. The tour guide (of which there are many to be found in Salvador) showed me his credentials (which they all do) and then started explaining how he could help us find the airport for R$100. I looked at my wife, trying to see if she had any answers, then invited the guide into car, and he took us to the airport. Later that day, we took a closer look at the maps and learned that we could have easily found our way back out of town. That ended up being the first of our many donations to the local economy.

After we picked up our landlord's nephew from the airport, we followed him and his brother to the home we rented for the week in a condominium community near the beach town of Arembepe. One the way, we encountered a police road block. They were checking for cars with expired registrations. Because of our diplomatic plates, we were not stopped, but our guides were. We waited for several minutes, and finally all of us were permitted to leave. It turns out the they were fined R$50 because they receipt they had of paying for the registration was over 30 days old, but they ended paying R$100 because the cops refused to make change. The entire time, the police were also telling them to not call or talk to me. They probably recognized the diplomatic plates and didn't want a government official interfering. Our guides were also Americans by the way.

Later, as they related the story to us, I felt sorry for them. I was trying to think if there was anything I could have done to aid them in that situation. Perhaps I could have stood with my cell phone and pretended to call my Federal Police contacts, or taken their names, or something. So far, that has been our only encounter with police corruption while in Brazil.

Week 23: Road Trip to Salvador Bahia, Day 1: Brasilia to Seabra

2011-08-21T15:04:00.069-04:00

For our summer vacation, we decided to spend a week in Salvador, Bahia. This would be our first big trip in Brazil outside of the Federal District. We were fairly excited about making this trip and getting to play on the beach, but we received conflicting reports on Salvador. Nearly everyone commented on how beautiful and historic this city is, but it also has a problem with crime. They were especially worried when they found out that we were going to drive there.

Despite all the warnings of the terrible road conditions on Brazilian highways, especially during the rainy season, and having to share the roads with large trucks, and the lack of services on route, we chose to drive our minivan. For one thing, airplane tickets for eight were too expensive, and then we wouldn't get to see the country.

In preparation for the drive, we purchased a Brazilian travel guide called Guia Quatro Rodas. This book lists all the major cities and tourist towns with hotels, tourist sites and restaurant information, and it included a highway map. One of the most striking things about the map was the large amounts of empty space in Brazil. Between the suggestions in the book and on their website we choose to go a northern route through Bahia on the way to Salvador, and return by a southern route through Minas Gerais. Both are very large states.

The drive turned out be absolutely beautiful and lush with green plants. Road conditions were good to very good for most of the drive. They seem to have been repaved sometime during the last three years.

We left Brasilia early on Saturday morning and were able to catch sun rising over a misty valley below the dam of Lake Paranoa. As we drove through the north part of Goias state and into Bahia, the scenery of vast stretches of farmland with grass and tree covered hills dominated the view. We managed to take a few photos along the way from the car. The grass along side the road very tall, up to six feet at times, and it was sometimes difficult to see the fields beyond. Farms at this time of the year were mostly planted with soybeans and corn, and we saw a few banana plantations and managed eucalyptus forests as well.

Our destination for the first day of driving was to Seabra, Bahia, where I had made reservations at a pousada. The most difficult part about making hotel reservations at the family run hotels here is arranging for the 50% deposit. Bank transfer is the main way that people pay bills here, and this is the only reason that I maintain a local bank account.

Along the way, we passed through several small towns, some with very large gas stations and maybe a hotel or two. Along the highway, there are people with food stands and small diners or bars in addition to tire repair shops.

One of the funniest things we saw were signs in the restrooms at the truck stops giving instructions on how to use a toilet. There were variations on these signs, but they all pretty much ask that one not use the floor or the sink, and to be sure to throw trash in the garbage pail. At one of the gas stations we stopped at, I did see a young man urinating in the shower drain, so there does seem to be a need for instructions. There also seem to be a need for literacy.

We arrived at the Pousada Seabra around 5:30PM. It was about a 13 hour drive from Brasilia, and we managed to get there before the sun set. We also gained an hour when we entered Bahia. Seabra is a crossroads town called the gateway to the Diamontina National Park. It is probably the largest town on this stretch of highway, and there are several hotels. We found this one through its website, which is no longer functioning. It also happened to be the bus stop and ticket counter for several cross country bus lines. The restaurant here is self-serve traditional Brazilian food and quite tasty. The rooms could accommodate anywhere from 2 to 16 people.

When we had reserved our room, we had requested two adjoining rooms on the ground level. When we got there, they had one room saved for us on the ground level, and the other on the third floor. We told them that that would not work for us, so we go moved to two rooms that were near each other on the third floor.

One of the reasons we picked this hotel was because it had a parking area. With the cars of all the other guests, it was a little difficult to maneuver our van in, but we managed. I think I only crush one curb and a planter in the process. I also ended up parked next to the building with the wash rooms behind the kitchen used by the bus travelers. At night, the gate to the parking area was closed and locked, and there were other cars double parked in the aisle.

This was our first experience staying in an inn that middle class Brazilians would stay in. Our only other Brazilian hotel experience was at a four-star hotel paid for by United Airlines when we had to stay the night in Sao Paulo. The Pousada Seabra definitely lowered our expectations on what hotels in Brazil were like.

The first thing to remember about the hotels is to ask if sheets and towels were provided. Pousada Seabra did provide a top sheet, blanket and pillow for each bed. What was surprising is that not every bed had a mattress. In each of the two rooms, the queen-size beds had a pillow-top mattress cover stretched over a plywood box. We chose to use those beds for suitcases.

After the long drive, it was nice to just sit down and play some games. This lasted until we were too tired and annoyed with each other to do more. It was also about the time the music from the bars next door was shut off. None of us showered because didn't feel like cleaning the mold off the showerhead.

Our last surprise occurred during the night. We got a heavy rain shower and learned that the disadvantage of being on the top floor was being near the roof. It was noisy, but it also leaked. Fortunately, none of our stuff got very wet since it was on the plywood box beds. It was enough rain to leave significant puddles on the floors.

Week 53: One Year in Brazil

2011-08-13T21:58:00.000-04:00

We've been in Brazil for a year now, and I still feel like I'm in a foreign country.

It's hot and dry in the afternoons, cool at night, brush fires light the night and a haze of smoke rests on the horizon making for beautiful sunsets. There is a perpetual covering of ash and red dust on our floors and windows, and imprints from reddened feet on the white cupboards in the kitchen. I pay bills through a bank, eat fresh tropical fruits every day, and shop at Sam's Club and Walmart to buy cuts of meat with strange names, shapes and smells.

Paper money is brightly colored, coins of the same value have different shapes and sizes, and cashiers never seem to have exact change. The garbage gets collected every night, and walls and gates surround every home like fortresses. There are no squirrels, but rodents the size of Labrador retrievers swim in the lake and monkeys pass through the trees in the back yard.

The local food is savory and salty, and is available by the kilo or all-you-can eat, and there are even places where the waiters will keep bringing food until you get up and leave, all for one price and even split 20 ways. But a large pepperoni pizza at Pizza Hut costs about US$30 and Big Mac value meal goes for US$12, which puts makes them affordable only as special treats.

Some day, it will rain again, and the grasses will green and the trees will grow new leaves. In the meantime, we will enjoy the yellow, pink and purple flowers of the trees that are now blooming and wait for the fresh mangoes, jubiticabas, acerolas, pitangas and papayas.

It has been a good year, and I am looking forward to another one here in this city of the future, prophesied by a priest and realized by a president, here in the middle of Brazil.

Week 36: 8 months in Brazil

2011-08-13T19:43:00.000-04:00

My preschooler recently had a discussion with her mom about missing her friends back in the U.S. She was lamenting not having any best friends in Brazil and how much she missed her good friends in the U.S. She could only remember one name of a friend from the U.S., and that was of her cousin whom she has only met six or seven times. Since she mentioned her cousin, her mom talked about how we would return to the States, and we would eventually see her cousins again. As my daughter thought about the possibility of seeing her American friends and cousins again, she became sad. She told her mother that it wouldn't be any good to see them again because they would not understand her. By then she would only know how to speak Portuguese.

Week 22: Secretary of State Visit

2011-04-10T21:27:00.000-04:00

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures from my point of view of the Secretary Clinton's visit, but I did get a chance to participate. I was assigned as the baggage officer and was responsible for getting the advance team's luggage onto the official airplane for the trip back to Washington, DC. We had got back and forth on whether a bag handlers were needed, but we decided it would be smoother to get the advance team's bags onto the airplane while they were doing their work for the inauguration events rather than doing it at the end of the day when they were trying to get off the ground. I am glad to have had the experience because it gave me an introduction on the step-by-step planning that goes into a major visit. This was one only lasted one day, and it still took over a week of meetings and site visits to prepare.

After going to the hotel to pick up the bags, we returned to embassy to have the bags and the all of the motorcade cars inspected and sniffed by the bomb dog. Bomb dogs are way cooler than X-ray machines. Then, I spent most of my day for the inauguration at the airport waiting for the Secretary's airplane to arrive, get refueled and loaded for the return trip. I rode in the motorcade to the airport in an armored van with the other two members of the baggage handling crew.

Since I was at the airport, I got to see the airplane land and listen to the reports from the site officers as they reported the step-by-step movement of the Secretary as she went to the pre-determined inauguration events. I even got to go up into the official aircraft and get tour. It's a well-laid-out aircraft that is very a much a place of business. It was interesting to me that other than a few technology upgrades, the basic plan was very similar to the Air Force One planes that are display at the Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio.

My last highlight of the day was watching the motorcade of the former Brazilian president enter the air base for his last official trip out of Brasilia. Lining the street just outside of the entrance was a group of supporters wishing him well and thanking him for a job well-done.

Week 22: Presidential Inauguration Day

2011-04-10T21:09:00.000-04:00

January 1st is the day declared by the Brazilian Constitution to have the Presidential Inauguration. This happens every four years, and happens to fall on one of the most celebrated of the Brazilian holidays, but that's how it is here.

This year was a particularly significant day since the person being sworn into office would be Brazil's first woman president, Dilma Rousseff. It was a hotly contested campaign, and she was the former chief of staff for Brazil's most popular president ever, Lula da Silva. Due to the importance of this day, the U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, was one of the several hundred foreign dignitaries that came to congratulate President Dilma and participate in the ceremonies.

We decided that this would probably be a once in a lifetime event for our children, so we made our way down to the Esplanada to partcipate in a few of the many activities and concerts that had been set up for this special day. Even the Brazilian Communist party was celebrating, as noted by the balloons and flags that lined the route to the government buildings where the inauguration would take place. The color red is the color of the PT, the worker's party, that won the election.

On the fields across from the congressional buildings, there were several pavilions and tents set up, each representing one of the regions of the Brazil. Also, there were large signs with pictures and stories about historically significant Brazilian women.

I didn't a chance to do much more than bring my family to the sites since I had to get back to the embassy to join with the rest of the embassy team that was meeting Secretary Clinton at the the airport. I'll write a little bit more about that later.

The first place we stopped was the children's pavilion, and at that time a musical group was performing music in support of a puppet show. I have no idea what the puppet show was about, but it reminded me of the Punch and Judy puppets.

After I returned to the embassy, my family went to a couple of the other pavilions to see some of the other demonstrations and shows. The group in this photo were representing an indigenous tribe from the Amazon. As they sang, they invited members of the audience to join with them as they moved rhythmically in a circle. The older woman doing the singing also did some improvisational songs that praised the new Brazilian president.

My family's favorite show was by a group of Ukrainian-Brazilian dancers from the south of Brazil. We knew that Brazil is a population made of people from all over the world, but seeing a Ukrainian folk dancing helped to sink in the message. This community has made it a distinct goal to try and preserve traditions from their homeland, and it really reminded me of the cultural celebrations that we have in Cleveland, which is another community made of cultures from around the world.

The most exciting moment of the outing came when my youngest son got separated from the rest of the family. As they were moving from one pavilion to another, it started to rain very hard, and so everyone moved under the closest tent. During this mass movement, my wife noticed that our son was no longer with them, so she told the rest of the kids to stay put while she hunted for him. She found a nearby police officer and used her Portuguese to describe the missing kid: short blonde hair wearing blue Crocs with socks. (Definitely not similar to any of the Brazilian kids that day. The socks were the giveaway feature.) Anyway, they returned to the pavilion my family had previously visited and our boy was still there. I think he might have just been noticing that he was not with the family. Fortunately, everyone was very helpful in helping us to get our boy back.

Week 35: Heavy rains and trees

2011-04-10T14:55:00.002-04:00

When we first moved into our home, this tree looked dead, with just a single trunk and a few branches with no leaves or buds or any outward sign of live. In the picture of the pool, the tree is in the upper left part of the photo. For most of the rainy season, the tree has produced leaves and filled out, but it was only a couple of weeks ago that an orange bloom appeared at the very top of the tree. I think that this might be some sort of sumac based on the leaves.

The flower its very interesting, too. It is large and is shaped like a scoop. It also has several flowers that bloom and then drop in sequence. I am not sure how long the blooms last, but the tree seems to be perpetually in flower once it gets going.

Another aspect of the rainy season is the amounts of rain we receive. In the picture above, the water in the swimming pool has reached the rim representing about 8 inches of rain that came during about five days of brief but very heavy showers. One of these showers produced some local flooding and power outages. So far this year we've had about three or four outages in our home per month. Only one has lasted more than an hour, and we were without power for about 6 hours. It may have been caused by an vehicle accident that involved a pole and that occurred during a heavy rainstorm.

Here are few more pictures from the trees next door. When I first saw this type of tree, I thought that there was a flock of birds roosting in it. On closer look, the white flecks are some sort of flower or seed pod. It really is beautiful here now.

Sometime in the next month, the daily rainstorms will stop, and the world will dry up and become brown and red. The birds here even have plumage that blend in with the red soil. The bird in this photo are a very common bird here that spends a lot of time on the ground searching for bugs to eat. They also hang out at the embassy near the cafeteria at lunch time and takes uneaten bits of meat off of abandoned plates.

Week 34: Ovos de Pascoa--Easter Eggs

2011-04-03T16:44:00.002-04:00

A couple of days after Carnaval, these canopies of beautifully wrapped eggs started to appear in the supermarkets. About a week ago, Rebecca and I stopped in at the Walmart Supercenter and saw the largest display of chocolate Easter eggs we have seen yet in Brasilia and decided that our kids needed to share in this cultural experience.
These egg displays were larger than any similar Christmas display we saw.

In this Walmart, the displays extended from the seasonal display area by the electronics department near the entrance of the store, around a corner and all the way down and past the 13 or so cash registers. The eggs were arranged by brand, size and type, and most of them were hanging from a canopy. Others were in bins and on shelves next to the canopies. There was even a castle of candy and eggs.

The eggs ranged in size from 100g to 1000g, and prices ranged from about R$6 to R$70 depending on the size, brand and contents of the egg. The eggs themselves were made from the popular types of chocolate candies, and most of them contained wrapped chocolates and/or little toys inside as well. For example, the Sonho de Valsa (Waltz Dream) is a popular chocolate covered wafer ball filled with honey-peanut butter flavored truffle-like filling. The egg is chocolate lined with a crunchy peanut and honey flavored coating, and filled with Sonho de Valsa candies.

Nestlé, Garoto, and Laka brands each had representatives under the canopy to assist customers with locating eggs and prices. To find prices from the store's selection, you needed to refer to laminated signs hanging from the canopy. The Nestlé girl even had a fanny pack filled examples of the toys one might find inside of the eggs. Laka's rep handed out a pamphlet that described the various eggs from their line. He even helped find a couple of small boxes to carry our eggs in.

We ended up purchasing 11 eggs, 8 for us and 3 to send to family and friends back in the U.S. We arranged a "secret" exchange and had our family members choose a name out of the hat, and then find an egg that that person might like. We're not so good at keeping the secret part of the exchange, so the kids made sure that they let the others know which eggs would be acceptable, and which would not. We thought we might be a little unusual in purchasing so many eggs at one time, but we saw at least two other customers with boxes filled with eggs for giving away. It ended up being a fun field trip for our family.

Week 21: A Fancy Flower

2011-03-30T20:49:00.000-04:00

I have seen some pretty amazing flowers in Brazil, but this one in a tree outside the President's residence was super fancy. There was also some fruit on the tree, but I have not been able to find anyone that really knows what type of tree makes this incredible flower. Of course, I have really tried in several weeks, either.

Week 21: Presidential Palace

2011-03-30T20:44:00.000-04:00

The Brazilian President's residence was our last stop for the day on New Year's Eve. We were all pretty tired by this point, so we didn't get out to look very closely. This was also the day before the inauguration of the new president, so everything was very neat and clean in preparation for the transition.

Week 21: Igreja Rainha do Paz (Queen of Peace Church)

2011-03-30T20:26:00.001-04:00

The Igreja Rainha do Paz is the chapel for the military base just to the north of this site. The chapel was designed by Niemeyer, and constructed on the site of the platform built for the visit of Pope John Paul II to Brasilia in 1991. It was dedicated in 1994, and is in the shape of a military tent barrack. It's also one of the newest structures on the Plano Piloto.

Pearl shaped lamps fall from the sloping ceiling. I found the jagged windows very interesting. To me, they look like tears in fabric, and represent the lament one feels from conflicts like war. It's a beautiful and very simply designed space.

Since we were here just after Christmas, the holiday nativity displays were still up. There is also a smaller chapel and a large multi-purpose meeting room on the lower level.

Week 21: Praca do Cruzeiro

2011-03-30T20:10:00.001-04:00

Just across the way from the JK Memorial is the Praca (PRAH-sah) do Cruzeiro, or Plaza of the Cross. The cross marks the spot that was initially surveyed as the highest point in the city of Brasilia. This is a great spot for flying kites, and based on the debris, apparently a good spot to hang out, drink liquor, burn candles and recite peace poetry.

This park also marks the place where the first building constructed in Brasilia stood. It was the construction site operations center. All that is left today are the cement footings. In photos from the construction period, this site also used to be filled with scrubby trees and brush common to this part of the cerrado (say-HAH-do), or the Brazilian savannah.

Week 21: Juscelina Kubitschek's Tomb and Memorial

2011-03-30T19:52:00.000-04:00

On New Year's Eve, we decided to go to the tomb and memorial for President Juscelina Kubitschek, also known as JK. He was the president of Brazil who decided to fulfill the professor of the Portuguese Saint Dom Bosco, and establish the capitol city of Brazil in the interior of Brazil. Last year, the city celebrated it's 50th anniversary when the seat of government officially moved here from Rio de Janeiro. Building Brasilia was quite and amazing feat of ingenuity, engineering, and willpower. The core of the city was designed and built in about 6 years. The design of the city also reflects the ideals of the planners in their views of futurism and the ideal society.

This particular monument was also designed by the master architect for Brasilia, Oscar Neimeyer, a native of Rio de Janeiro known for his grand, minimalist designs. Some of the things he and the chief engineer management to pull off with reinforced concrete are pretty amazing.

This building rises out of the earth like a polished stone, and is surrounded by a tiered pools of water. Guests walk down a ramp and through a tunnel lined with large scale images of JK depicting various events in his life. In glass cases along the path are various artifacts from his life, like his medical kit (he was a doctor).

On the main floor, his library has been reconstructed, and it has sculptures of Rome and Romulus nursing at the teats of a she-wolf, and walls lined with books. Like most other buildings here, the indoors and outdoors are linked, and not much more than a pane of glass separates the two. The kids liked playing hide and seek in this garden just past one of these panes of glass near the library.

Upstairs, there are displays with more artifacts form his career as president, including articles of clothing that he and his wife wore. I really like the inauguration display. Her dresses were pretty fabulous.

These cases contained various medals and plaques given to JK during his presidency by leaders of other nations and organizations. The entire hall was dimly light and sparse. This is also the level that holds JK's coffin.

The coffin is located in a circular room and "floats" on a cushion of light in the center of the room. It is made of a highly polished black granite. Above the coffin is a beautiful stain glass window made of purple, orange, red and yellow panes of glass, and gives the room a red-orange glow.

When one leaves the building on the parking lot side of the building, the Chevrolet Opala that JK was riding in when he died is on display. He died of injuries caused by an automobile accident in 1976, not too many years after returning to Brazil from exile.

Week 34: Butterfly

2011-03-30T19:10:00.000-04:00

The butterfly came out of the chrysalis today. Like many of the butterflies here, it has brown coloring and spots. The highlight coloring is orange, with flecks on the body, streaks on the wings, and a patch on the abdomen. It appears to only have four legs, at least only four larger legs it walks on. It's still stuck in the bathroom, and the orange streaks kind of match the paint in there.

Week 21: New Year's Eve in Brasilia

2011-03-28T21:17:00.001-04:00

During the Christmas holidays, the buildings in Brasília were covered with lights. This photo is of the CAIXA bank building, one of the federal banks. My kids called this the Tower of Power, and remarked that the light display could have been some sort of UFO landing beacon.

On New Year's Eve, we went to a friend's home that has a great view of the lake and Brasília. At midnight, all the clubs and several of the homes that are located along the lakeshore began to set off fireworks. For the next twenty to thirty minutes, the lake was ringed with fire. It was one of the most amazing fireworks displays I had ever seen.

Week 21: Blind Snake

2011-03-28T20:59:00.000-04:00

One evening, Rebecca screamed and yelled stating that there was a snake in the house. This got my attention, and I was very interested in seeing this snake, since it would be the first free-range Brazilian snake that I have seen. It turned out that the snake was a six-inch earthworm-like creature with a very small head, and long thin body. The head and tail were nearly indistinguishable, and the eyes were very tiny. It was a blind snake, one of the smallest species of snakes that lives in the ground eating small insects. It was very wriggly, but I managed to pick it up and return it to the yard outside. About a week later, we found another blind snake in the laundry room.

Week 33: Big Caterpillars and Chrysalids

2011-03-27T22:24:00.001-04:00

Rebecca found this chrysalis on the back of the bathroom door new the front entry of the house the other day. A day earlier, she had commented on there being "one of those big caterpillars from the bush out front" in the bathroom. Apparently, the caterpillar crawled away from the bush, across the driveway, and under the front door and found a place safe from birds in order to metamorphose. I am looking forward to seeing what type of butterfly this was changes into.

This might have been the type of large, fuzzy caterpillar that entered the house. One day we noticed a few of these smashed on the driveway, and the next day, a branch of the palm tree near the front door fell, revealing a stash of about 50 of these four-inch long critters. My kids played with them for hours trying to get them off the driveway and back up the tree to safety from the wheels of the cars.

The caterpillar may have also been one of this kind. These bugs have pretty much decimated the foliage on this bush, but I haven't wanted to kill them because I want to know what they become. This photo is actually from a first batch of caterpillars appeared and disappeared about a month ago.

In January, the kids pointed out this mass of caterpillars moving through the yard. We have seen many, many different kinds of larvae here. These photos are just of the largest samples of the bugs.

A green colored chrysalis on the frame of the back door. I am not certain what type of caterpillar formed this one.

Week 20: Hanging Santas

2011-03-27T22:03:00.000-04:00

One of our holiday traditions is to drive around during the weeks before Christmas and take a look at Christmas displays in people's yards. In Brasilia, no one really has a front yard since all the homes are essentially fortresses walled in by concrete, electrical wires and very tall hedges. We did find one street near our church building that had a festive spirit, and the entire street had lights, angels, trees, and other things much like displays in the U.S. They call their street "Rua de Amizade" or "Friendship Street."

The funniest thing about the street were the hanging Santas. We saw them in many locations around town, but the concentration and variety was greatest here on this street. We decided that we needed to get one as well, and so I purchased one from one of the men who sell things at intersections.

Week 32: A Meet and Greet with President Obama

2011-03-27T21:45:00.000-04:00

Last weekend, President Obama and his family came to Brazil to meet with Brazil's President Dilma Rouseff and to speak at several business and cultural events. This is my favorite photo from the Meet and Greet with President Obama. I was trying to get a shot of my wife or one of my kids shaking hands with the President, but I couldn't see through the mass of people, so I raised the camera and clicked the button.

I had originally been assigned as part of the baggage crew to handle the luggage of the First Family, but the plans changed for them to spend two nights in Rio de Janeiro, so I wasn't needed. I did get put in with another team to help with the CEO Luncheon at Itamaraty, the main building for the Ministry of Foreign Relations, but was told the night before the visit that I had not been cleared to go to Itamaraty since I was still on the airport list. One of things I learned from this visit was that plans are changing constantly.

Because I didn't have an assignment, I did get to go to the Meet and Greet that was held employees and their families from the U.S. Embassy in Brasilia. It was held at the same convention center as the final business meeting of the day. As we were waiting, we got news that the President was running behind schedule, and there was some worry that he may not have time to see us.

I was standing near the back of the crowd while my wife and the kids were near the front. Fortunately, the President did manage to stop in, though he was only able to stay long enough to offer some words of thanks and encouragement, shake several hands, sign a few books, and then he was rushed off to his next meeting.

We had been waiting for a little over three hours when the President arrived. I was amazed at how well-behaved the children were while waiting because there really was not that much to do other than hang out and talk to your friends and play video games on iPods and Nintendo DS. Due to security concerns, back packs full of the things one would normally bring to entertain children were not permitted. A few of the younger managed a brief game of chase in the lobby, and at least one parent brought markers and paper and set up a drawing area on the floor under the stairs.

Following Mr. Obama's remarks, he passed across the front the audience and reached out to shake as many hands as possible before leaving. My wife managed to get a good handshake. She deserved it. She waited for three hours in the same spot and made some new acquaintances from the embassy while doing so as well. The kids were also placed in a good spot to see to President, so a couple of them also were able to shake his hand.

One of my favorite moments from the event was when President Obama saw a sign made by one of the kids, and he told her to pass the sign forward so that he could sign it.

Week 31: Super Hot Dogs at the Kids' Carnaval

2011-03-27T21:03:00.000-04:00

In the parking lot near the Kids' Carnaval, a row of hot dog vendors had set up their Chinese made vans. Each of these vans had a complete, portable kitchen and could turn any small area to a street cafe. And they all were selling the same thing, hot dogs (AH-chee DOH-gees), or "salsichas" (sawl-SEE-shahs). These little vans look a lot like the Mystery Machine from Scooby Doo. The kitchenettes have stainless steel steamers and warming trays that are heated by gas from portable tanks. I had seen set-ups like this around town on other occasions, but this was the first time I had seen about 8 vans all in the same spot.

My older sons had heard rumors of this super hot dogs from their friends at school, so we decided to try them. The basic construction of the super hot dog is put inside of a bun a salsicha and bury that hot dog in mashed potatoes, corn, and fried crispy potatoes, and then season with ketchup.

The buns and hot dogs are very different here in Brasilia than what is found in the U.S. One notable difference is that the franks are a paprika color of red-orange, which also turns the water orange when their cooked. And no matter what brand, the hot dogs are all made from chicken and all look and taste the same. The buns are not precut and are about twice as fluffy as buns sold in the U.S. Also, the buns got soggy from the potatoes and corn. Overall, I and my kids are not impressed with Brazilian hot dogs, but served with mashed potatoes, corn and crunchy potatoes is pretty tasty for street food that only costs R$2.50.

Week 31: Carnaval in Brasilia

2011-03-27T20:40:00.002-04:00

We spent the Carnaval week in Brasilia. My older boys actually went on a camping trip with other youth from our church in the area (the Brasilia Stake of the LDS church). The day we picked them up from camp was the official fat Tuesday, and there were several events going on around town. We have hoped to catch a parade, but we just didn't get home from picking up the boys from camp in time to see one. So we decided to take the kids to the Parque de Cidade, the big central park of Brasilia, to the Kids' Carnaval party.

We got their in time to catch about the last hour or so of the event, and even though many people were leaving as we were arriving, there were still hundreds of kids and their families dancing to the music of a live band and playing on the inflatable bounce toys and trampolines. The band was really fun, and I tried to get my kids to dance, but there were just interested in the big toys.

There was confetti, streamers and cans of spray foam all over the ground. Jacob found this can and was hoping that there would be just a little bit left to spray. There were vendors of light-up toys, cans of foam, and other trinkets and candy and popcorn surrounding the edges of the area fenced off by the city for the kids party. No alcohol and no smoking was allowed in the Kids' Carnaval area, and I really appreciated it. People were having fun in a familiy-friendly setting.

I took this photo just after one of the face painting booths had packed up and removed their table. What's amazing to me is that there really are no garbage cans placed out by the city for people to deposit their trash. Early the next morning after large events, a small army of workers in orange and blue jumpsuits will descend on the area and sweep everything up.

Many of the kids were wearing costumes. Carnaval is the time to be someone or something different. Most of the girls were wearing some version of a Disney princess dress. I think this boy and his brother had the most unique costumes I saw that evening.

Week 31: A Perfect Flower

2011-03-27T20:17:00.000-04:00

I first encountered this flower last December at the Bank of Brasil Cultural Center. We went to see and exhibit of prints by Escher, who is one of my favorite artists. While playing on some of the outdoor sculptures that doubled as playground equipment, my youngest daughter pointed out some absolutely beautiful flowers. I didn't have my camera with me, so I didn't get a picture that day, but then I began noticing these trees in other parts of town. I am particularly impressed by the spiral symmetry, the five overlapping petals, and the airbrushed look. These flowers have the appearance of something someone might make out of sugar and put on a cake. At a garden and landscaping shop, these were called a type of "mangeira".

Week 19: Caja manga and abacaxí

2011-03-06T21:24:00.000-04:00

One of our favorite grocery stores here is Pão de Açucar (sugar bread or loaf), a national chain that is named for a famous mountain near Rio de Janeiro. They have a great selection of fruits and vegetables, and we like to purchase a new one every couple of weeks or so just to try it out.

This fruit is a "caja manga" (KAH-jah MAHN-gah), it was a not easy to eat. It was mildly sweet, had a very tough rind and a seed with several tough tendrils that extended into the fruit. I'm not sure if these are used in cooking, but eating it directly was difficult.

I bought this pineapple because it had two heads. The next week we found a four-headed one at Sam's Club.

Brazilian pineapple, called abacaxí (ah-bah-kah-SHEE), is quite a bit different than the pineapples from sold in the U.S. that are grown in Hawaii and Costa Rica. Abacaxí is sweeter, less acidic and therefore less sour, has a lighter color, and the core is softer and more edible. These are some of our favorite fruits to eat here, and we get at least one or two per week. My favorite place to buy them is from the man across the street from one of the grocery stores who sells them from his wheelbarrow. His are generally less expensive. We pay about R$3 to R$5 each (between US$2 and US$3.50) in Brasília, though the price can be lower if they're on sale.

One of the things that has surprised about living in Brasília is that produce costs more than we had expected. I guess that's what we get for living in the interior.

Week 19 & 28: Planting a Garden

2011-03-06T21:23:00.000-04:00

Our gardener has a cleared an area for a vegetable garden under the papaya tree. We got seeds from another diplomat family, and then prepared planters for seedlings. Every day, Sam would check the pots to see if anything had sprouted yet. He also planted a seed from a lichia fruit.

The soil here is very red and not very rich in nutrients. We visited a nearby nursery and purchased a few bags of soil and compost, and then we had our gardener mix that in with the soil.

The seeds grew well, and we have recently enjoyed green beans, zucchini squash and lettuce. The basil and corn are also growing well, but we've yet to harvest ears of corn. The corn on the cob here has large, tough kernels, and is more like the feed corn in the U.S. than the sweet corn used for human consumption.

Week 18: Bananas and Siriguelas

2011-03-06T21:21:00.000-04:00

We went to the CEASA produce market in Brasilia and discovered a nice source of fresh fruits and vegetables. This market is only open to the public on Fridays and Saturdays, and includes wholesalers as well as family farmers selling goods. During the rest of the week, the market is open for buyers from stores and restaurants.

There is also a well-stocked candy and chocolate shop with bulk sized sweets and baking supplies. At this shop we found unsweetened cocoa powder and powdered sugar, two items not available in the grocery stores here.

In Brazil, there seems to be a job for everyone. For example, there are people who help you guide your car in the parking lots, others that will wash it while you wait, venders of toys, maps, cleaning cloths and garbage sacks at traffic intersections, and people that juggle and entertain while you wait for the light to turn green.

At the CEASA, we hired a woman with a shopping cart to accompany us and carry the items we purchased. As we bought fruit or vegetables, either her or her 11-yr-old daughter would take the items from the vendor and place them in our shopping bags in the cart. It was a nice service, especially since there were no "free" carts to use.

A fun aspect of the market was getting to see and sample various types of tropical fruits. It has been interesting sampling these different fruits. For example, there are several types of bananas available here. I purchased these because there were the smallest and largest bananas at the market that day. The small ones are called "bananas ouro", or gold bananas. They're thumb-sized and have a very sweet, golden colored flesh. The large bananas are called "bananas nanica" and are the most common bananas here. These are the same bananas that are in the supermarkets in the United States.

Another fruit that caught my interest that day was the "siriguela". This fruit has a yellow-orange flesh, that is tart-sweet and juicy, and surrounds a large seed. These were quite tasty and the tartness left my mouth a little dry.

In the month of February, we discovered that one of the trees in our back yard produces this fruit. Unfortunately, the branches are very far from the ground, and by the time the ripe fruit falls, the monkeys and ants have taken a the choicest bits.

Week 18: EAB Christmas Program

2011-02-12T08:15:00.001-03:00

The school Christmas program was a done about a week before the school got out for the summer break. It was good to hear holiday music from various cultures being performed by all the different groups instead of generic songs. At one school district we attended in the states, the music teacher decided that in order to not offend anyone, the kids would perform a series of self-esteem themed pop songs. It was awful because the kids did not like the songs and they performed like they didn't like them.

Anyway, at EAB, I was impressed by the effort put in to develop a set and include various types of performances from the elementary school. Emma even got to sing a solo of "Silent Night", and she did very well.

One of the things that we have found very different here is that most of the school meetings, PTO meetings and performances are schedule during the school day, not in the evening after parents would be out of work. What has been impressive is how many parents are able to show up for these performances during the school day. In fact, day time events have better attendance than those in the evening. The embassy is also very good at allowing parents to take an hour or two out of the work day to let them go support their children and watch the show.

Week 17: Grease is the Word

2011-02-12T08:00:00.000-03:00

The American School put on a highlights show of songs and dancing from Grease. They had hoped to put on the full show, but elected to do this smaller show largely due the lack of experience of the cast. The director is the new theater and digital media teacher at the school. She was presented with quite a few challenges when putting the production together, including an open-casting policy (everyone that tries out, gets in), field trips, limited rehearsal schedule and finding the support resources. They've decided to build on this experience and do the full show next semester.

Rebecca volunteered her talents and assisted the student director and designer to create the costumes. Rebecca also stitched the boys leather jackets and the jackets of the Pink Ladies. The largest challenge was finding the right fabrics, accessories and patterns. She was unable to find a men's jacket pattern, so the she adapted a women's pattern to use here. She also ordered the zippers, fabric and patterns from the states since she couldn't find what she needed here. Unfortunately, it took six weeks for all of the parts to arrive, and that left just 10 days to get all 9 jackets done, and each jacket took about 6-8 hours of work to sew.

Two of our kids were in the show in supporting roles and in the chorus. The director decided to use the Saturday matinee as an understudy show, which gave the younger kids the experience of performing in the lead roles. My kids really enjoyed the experience, and loved the director. I think the director did a really nice job pulling the show together. She was a good find to bring to EAB.

Despite the challenges, the show was quite good. The kids put on three energetic and fun performances. The costumes looked nice, and even the simple set pieces were effective for this show. The kids had prepared well-enough that they were even able to perform well through technical problems with the microphones. As an audience member, I enjoyed the shows. I'm looking forward to seeing the full production.

Week 17: Breakfast with Santa

2011-02-12T07:23:00.000-03:00

On the first Saturday of December, the CLO office hosted breakfast with Santa at the Embassy. It was a nice time to get together with the other embassy families, visit and eat some pretty good food. The kids were pretty excited to see doughnuts in the buffet because these are certainly a rare find in Brasilia.

Our Santa wore Birkenstocks. Sandals were fitting to wear for the beautiful early summer day. This was also a pretty good clue that he wasn't Brazilian because then he would have worn Hawaiianas flip-flops.

One of the things that I have noticed is that Brazilians love to decorate with balloons, and they create sculptures of various sizes and shapes. Our kids thought that the snowman was good enough to take home.

Pretty Pink Flower

2011-02-12T07:07:00.000-03:00

Since the rainy season started, more and more of the trees have been flowering. I noticed this flower while driving, and there happen to be several of these trees on the embassy grounds. The hummingbirds like these flowers, too.

Week 16: Setting up the Christmas Tree

2011-02-12T07:01:00.000-03:00

Last Christmas, we set up a fresh cut tree for the first time. We decided that it would probably be a long time before we would be able to use fresh cut trees. That tree was also nearly 8 feet tall, and fit quite well in the room with the lofted ceiling. Also, since all of our traditional decorations were still in storage, we chose to create handmade crafts to decorate the tree, for example, garlands of cranberry and popcorn, toilet paper tube stars, corn husk dolls, and other things from felt and pipe cleaners.

We purchased an artificial tree just before we moved in July, which turned out to be more difficult to find than we had expected. Fortunately, their was a couple who had just moved to a smaller apartment and need to sell three of their five trees, and I found their ad on Craig's List.

Like last year, we still only had the handmade decorations from last year's tree. Our collection of ornaments were still sitting in a crate on some dock in Rio de Janeiro waiting for customs clearance and a truck to Brasilia with the rest of our household goods that we had pulled out of storage. This shipment had been missed on the shipping orders, and so sat in Maryland for an extra month.

Rebecca was pretty disappointed about having to use the same decorations as last year. She insisted that as soon as our other ornaments arrived, we would redecorate the tree. Also, I think the most surprising thing about this tree is how small it felt in the large front room of this house. Anyway, the kids enjoyed decorating and starting our Christmas celebration.

A big moth

2011-02-12T06:34:00.000-03:00

This moth was sitting on the box fort, and then flew up to the rafters in our garage when I approached it. The wingspan was about 8 inches, or the span of my outstretched hand from pinkie to thumb. As a zoologist, I am completely intrigued by the insects here, and of course, I would like to know what they're called. In the common language, this and all other butterflies and moth-like creatures, would be called a borboleta.

Week 15: Thanksgiving Food

2011-01-25T22:18:00.000-03:00

Every year, we try a few different dishes in our Thanksgiving feast. In this photos is another fruit from trees in our yard called the "pitanga" (pee-TAWN-ga). These are quite tasty and juicy, having a tangy sweet cherry-like flavor. There a three or four seeds in the middle. I served these with abacaxí (ah-bah-kah-SHEE), the Brazilian pineapple. Brazilian pineapple is sweeter and less acidic than the Hawaiian variety. The core is also softer and very edible.

These are deviled-quail eggs. Brazilians usually eat quail eggs boiled and plain as a side. I thought it would be fun to have a twist to serve them as deviled eggs. They are small and bite-size making them fun to eat.

As Thanksgiving was approaching, we were getting worried that we wouldn't be able to find a a large turkey to roast, so I purchased some sausage and marinate pork "lombo" to cook in the churrasca. My gardener did the outdoor cooking, and he did a nice job cooking the meat just right. The Saturday before Thanksgiving, we were able to find a 24lb turkey at Sam's Club. It cost three times as much as a turkey would in the U.S., but it was worth. Rebecca roasted it with oranges and butter as part of the seasoning. It turned out nice and juicy.

Week 15: Thanksgiving Dinner

2011-01-25T21:59:00.000-03:00

We hosted several families for Thanksgiving dinner, including an American family that manages the LDS Church farm near Formosa. They had not been with other American kids in Brazil for about a year. Not all of the families we invited were able to make it for dinner, so we also had a desert social in the evening. In total, 51 people came to our home to share stories and eat food. I enjoyed hosting the event and seeing people relax and enjoy the company and activities. The kids played for hours in the pool and box fort and swinging on the hammock. The boys even convinced to me to light our brush pile on fire. The second fire we've set since moving in, and a lot less scary than the one we had during the dry season.

Week 14: Ripe Fruit and Monkeys

2011-01-25T21:47:00.001-03:00

A couple of the trees in our backyard had ripe fruit on them for a couple of weeks. This particular tree has is the acerola (ah-ser-ROW-la). The fruit are about the size of crab apples and have a couple of large seeds inside, and are sour like crab apples. According to our gardener, the acerola is supposed to be very high in Vitamin C and very healthy. Since we didn't have fresh cranberries to make cranberry salad for Thanksgiving dinner, I substituted acerola, and it tasted pretty good. The texture wasn't quite right because the acerola are not as dry as cranberries.

While the fruit was ripe, we received daily morning visits from the family of tamarins that lives in our neighborhood. They are also particularly fond of bananas and readily eat banana from my hand. There are five members in this group, two are juveniles. The bravest male no longer has a tail.

Brazilian Fruit: Maná-Cubiu

2011-01-25T21:37:00.001-03:00

This is a peel and eat fruit called a "maná-cubiu" (mah-NAH coo-BEE-oo). It is kind of sweet, has lots of little seeds in the middle, and leaves a very sticky film on your lips due to the latex in the peel.

Week 13: Box Fort, Phase 1

2011-01-25T21:31:00.000-03:00

For Family Home Evening, we made a box fort from the empty boxes. We had several large, three-ply bicycle boxes that were very study and made a nice foundation for creating a bridge. Each of the younger children claimed a "house" using one of the larger boxes. We then added a library and a restaurant. The kids played in this structure for weeks with their friends. By Thanksgiving, we had added a couple more towers and tunnels. My gardener thought were we a little crazy to keep all the boxes, but he agreed that the box fort was pretty cool.

We built the fort in the area called the garage. Here is a view of the rest of the back porch. It's a pretty large area and is a nice place for entertaining, playing and just sitting outside.

A fallen bird's nest

2011-01-25T21:20:00.000-03:00

One morning, after a rain storm, the kids found this bird's nest on the ground below a palm tree near our back porch. I do not what kinds of birds made this nest, but I think the eggs are beautiful.

Week 13: Furniture in the Family Room

2011-01-25T21:14:00.000-03:00

For the first time since moving into our home, the upstairs family room has furniture. This is the room for the toys and the TV, and there's still plenty of room for dancing. In honor of the room, and since the audience now had a place to sit, Abby and Emma put on a play about a Korean princess who thought she was an orphaned encountering her mother at the market.

Week 13: Food at the TV Tower

2011-01-25T21:07:00.000-03:00

As with any fair, there is a pretty decent food area at the TV Tower. There are basically three kinds of fair food in Brazil: pastels and empandaos, self-serve with churrasca (BBQ), and fruit drinks. We have grown to like pastels since they're tasty and inexpensive. A pastel is a deep fried pastry filled with cheese, meats, and/or bananas. The banana and cheese with chocolate is quite good.

Brazilian food is also pretty salty, so you definitely need to get something to drink. Today we tried Caldo de Cana, which is a juice pressed directly from sugar cane. It's prepared by passing a sugar cane through a press and the juice is collected in a cup and ready to drink. The liquid is a yellowish green, like oobleck or a grass stain, and kind of tastes like sweetened grass, too. It's pretty good, and the flavor changes depending on the sugar cane stalk.

Week 13: The TV Tower Fair

2011-01-25T20:54:00.000-03:00

Below the TV Tower along the fuselage part of the city, the Planalto, is an ongoing art fair. This market has people selling handicrafts, jewelry, furniture, clothing, leather goods, rock carvings and trinkets year round. We decided to start our Christmas shopping here with attempt to be mostly done with gifts to ship home by Thanksgiving.

We bought a musical instrument from a Bahian transplant to Brasilia who calls himself "O Mestre Angolar". He grows the bamboo and gourds and uses recycled materials to make musical instruments common in Brazil that are used in capoeira, a type of martial art and dance developed by African slaves. I purchased a berimbau (as demonstrated by O Mestre) for my mom. I think she'll get a kick out of trying to figure out how it works.

Here, the kids are watching this vendor and leather craftsman from Mato Grosso punch holes in a belt for Grandpa. Cattle ranching is a big part of the agriculture industry in Brazil, and leatherwork is quite common here. They make sandals, bags, hats, belts, shoes and many other things from leather. For the most part, the objects have a rough, hand-made look to them.

I really wanted the terra cotta St. Francis, a very popular saint in Brazil, but I didn't want to add any more weight to our household goods. I think this style of pottery is characteristic of the southern part of Bahia.

Week 12: The Marines Ball

2011-01-25T20:27:00.001-03:00

Rebecca and I went to our first Marines Ball on Friday evening over at the Naval Club. This annual event celebrates the anniversary of the Marine Corps, and includes food, drinks, ceremony and dancing.The ball welcomed several members of the embassy community, and several guests and dignitaries from the diplomatic corps and Brazilian military.The night was fun, and we sat with good company with several other entry level officers. Of course, this also meant we got seated far from seeing the processional events and against a wall, but we weren't too far from the food.

The dessert table was beautifully arranged, and the desserts were tasty. One of my favorite desserts is maracuja, or passion fruit, pudding (not shown). It has a sour flavor that reminds me of Sour Patch Kids.

One of the main problems Rebecca and I had was getting enough to drink since we don't drink alcohol, and alcohol flowed like a river at the Ball. The bar was only preparing drinks for the waiters, who carried trays about the room with glasses of beer and cocktails, as well as bottles of wine and whiskey. They did have a about one or two fruit juices on each tray, but those disappeared quickly. Water was only served during dinner, and there was no drinking fountain.

As part of the ceremony, and this was my favorite part, the Marines have a "Marching of the Cake". A contingent of Marines march in half time to the Marine's Anthem ("from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli..."). Anyway, the guest of honor, who was Ambassador Shannon, uses a Marine's sword to cut the first piece of cake. Then the oldest military serviceman at post (a navy commander) serves the youngest (a marine corporal) and bite of the cake. This cake was made by Mrs. Shannon. I think we should march cakes in for every birthday party, and then cut it with a sword.

Rebecca has been preparing for this event every since we got accepted to the Foreign Service. She searched scoured the web, and we went to several stores to find a dress that would fit modestly and look good, and not cost too much. She considered making a dress, but there wasn't enough time to do so before we moved, and she couldn't find a pattern she liked. She found this one at Loehman's in Falls Church, and then added the cap sleeves from remnants cut from the hem.

I provided the freshwater pearl necklace that I bought at a jewelry store near our home in Brasilia. They were have an anniversary sale, and the pearls were half price and just as beautiful. I also bought a tux for me.

Well, tonight, we were one of the Clubes blasting music that could be heard clearly all the way across the lake. This is actually a weekly event, loud music that goes late into the night from the clubs on the weekends. Brazilian really like the loud music. I had a lot of fun dancing, but it took a while for my ears to recover.

Week 12: Newcomers Welcome at the Ambassador's Residence

2011-01-25T19:53:00.000-03:00

This week was quite full of activities. On Sunday, the Ambassador and his wife hosted all the people who had arrived at post within the last year, which would include him. He opened up his home, and we had a nice pasta dinner and ice cream sundae dessert. More importantly, we were able to meet the parents of some of kids' friends. The Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM) and her husband sat down a bit late, and so they ended up sitting at a table full of our kids. I think they enjoyed the time away from the adults.

The Ambassador's residence sits up on hill overlooking the city. It has a large back yard with a tennis court, swimming pool, and two covered patios and out-buildings for outdoor entertaining. He also has a full-size grand piano in his living room. The style of the home is very Mediterranean. This is actually a change of residence from the previous Ambassador, and when the housing team chose the home, they didn't realize that it sits under the flight route to the airport, so there are regular interruptions from the approaching airplanes.

Week 12: HHE & Mini-van Arrive in Brasilia

2011-01-25T19:44:00.000-03:00

Our household goods and our minivan finally arrived in Brasilia this week. It's only been three months since we've had access to these possessions as they spent a month sitting on a dock, another month sailing the ocean, and another month sitting in the customs house in Rio de Janeiro. Based on our conversations with other embassy families, three to four months seems to be about average for Brazil, and quite a bit longer than many other posts. We are still waiting on another smaller shipment of household goods we pulled out of storage.

The movers were very efficient and were able to get everything off the truck, unwrapped, and place in the right general location. This was a great opportunity to learn the names of the rooms, or "salas", of the house in Portuguese. The movers could have also unpacked for us, but we weren't quite sure where to put everything, so we just had them assemble a bed, the sofa, and a couple of shelve units. Besides, we wanted to create a big box fort out of the boxes.

Our van took another couple weeks to get the diplomatic plates issued. It was so nice to have a car again, especially in this "designed to get around by car" town. In Brazil, cars that belong to diplomats get a special blue diplomatic plate. It is a stark contrast to the regular white plates on all the other cars. In order to get plated, I had to take the van to DETRAN, the BMV in Brazil, and have the inspector confirm all the serial numbers for the chassis and engine. We arrived late to our appointment, so we waited about an hour while the inspector finished up a Canadian diplomats car. While waiting, Abby found a cat to befriend.

I also got a number of questions about our van, a Honda Odyssey, and a couple of offers to buy the van if we decide to sell when we leave. Odyssey's are larger than most of the family cars here and are quite rare since they're not built and sold in Brazil. I know of only three other Odysseys in Brasilia, all but one owned by diplomat families.

Yellow-headed Fly

2011-01-25T19:25:00.000-03:00

Back in October, I saw this fly buzzing around the kitchen. It reminded of the mutant fly from the original version of the movie, "The Fly". It might be a super-hero fly dressed up in its super outfit.

2010-12-25

2011-01-02T15:35:00.000-03:00

On Christmas night, we went to the TV Tower for the annual Christmas Spectacular show put on by the Distrito Federal governor's office. The video shows the second number of the show. My youngest daughter was frightened of the fireworks, so I had to hold her squirming body while trying to record this part of the show. There were probably seven numbers in total and lasted for about thirty minutes, with a mix of holiday songs and popular ballads that were sung by live performers.

We had attempted to see the show earlier in the week, but we came on a technical night, so they didn't have the music and the lights coordinated yet. My oldest boy said that the show made up for missing fireworks on the 4th of July since were traveling through Ohio that night last summer.

Gigantic Beetle

2010-11-01T22:11:00.001-03:00

I found this beetle carcass near the tree we parked next to at the school. (Yes, there are trees planted in the parking lots). I have no idea what type of beetle, but it was huge. This one had a green metallic irridescence and was about 3-4 inches long.

Spooky Treats

2010-11-01T21:49:00.000-03:00

These finger foods were fabulous.

Week 11: Halloween Parties

2010-11-01T21:47:00.001-03:00

Rebecca figured out that she attended seven parties last week, beginning with the newcomers luncheon at the Ambassador's residence last Sunday. On Friday, she assisted with the Sam's 1st grade class party, then took the kids over to the Embassy for Trick-or-Treating, and finished the night at the American School's Halloween Carnival. On Saturday, we attended the Primary Halloween activity at the church and then Rebecca and I went to the Hollywood Halloween Party sponsored by a member of the U.S. Embassy community. We did not go to the parties at the British or Canadian Embassies. Maybe next year. We finished the week at a friend's house on Halloween Sunday with an afternoon dessert and viewing of "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown."

We decided that our favorite parties were the ones with activities and sound levels low enough to actually hold a conversation with other people. The one that was the least fun for us was the adult party on Saturday night. It was fun to see other people dressed as movie characters (Rebecca and I did Titania and Bottom from "A Midsummer's Night Dream), but it was impossible to talk to anyone due to the music volume.

Brazilian like music loud. The DJ's set up included speakers the size of my car, flashing lights and two large screen TV's showing videos of the songs being played. Like other Brazilian parties, the music could be heard done the block, the bass and drum beats pounding out the call to gather and bounce in place on the patio. My chest was vibrating as we approached the house from the front. We stayed for about an hour, but got bored with not understanding the music or being able to talk to other people. It was really kind of a lonely experience to be surrounded by people but not being able to speak with them.

On the other hand, American expats love Halloween. The costumes worn at the party were fabulous and creative. At the Embassy, the Americans and the local staff turned their offices and hallways into spook alleys and gave away a ton of candy to the 100 or so kids that visited. Every accessible office had decorations using draping fabrics, streamers, balloons and other items ordered from The Oriental Trading Company. The Marines created a graveyard with tombstones and skeletons outside down their hallway. My favorite was the USAID and CDC crew's passage through and Egyptian tomb of cubicles, cardboard boxes and black drapes. They dressed up as mummies, too. My favorite detail was playing a shrieking mummy head on their desktop computers. Motorpool even created a Spooky Van to bring kids in from the school.

Over at the American School, the PTO fought to keep the tradition of a Halloween Carnival, and ended up presenting a great party. There were several booths with activities like Pin the Nose on the Witch, drinking a foggy witch's potion, various candy and ball tosses and Fishing for Bones. The high school students even created a haunted hallway spooky enough to keep Emma from sleeping for two nights after insisting on going through. We even got to eat very fresh hamburgers. Well, more like less than well-done almost a steak tartar version of a burger.

Week 10-11: Halloween Costumes

2010-11-01T21:25:00.000-03:00

The kids were allowed to wear costumes to school if they represented characters from books. Emma is Helen of Troy and Sam is Achilles. Lillian is Titania, Queen of the fairies from "Midsummer Night's Dream". Jacob is the werewolf Jacob Black and Joseph is that vampire guy from the same book. Jacob had wanted to be a potato, but the gunny sack wrapping from the classified pouch shipment boxes just didn't work well.

Rebecca constructed only one Halloween costume this year because we only had the material for one. Then, then Saturday a week before Halloween, she broke five sewing machine needles in one day, completely using up the stash she had brought from the U.S., and there was not enough time to order more. We were now set for another adventure in Brasilia.

Brasilia is a planned city, but the plan doesn't really fit with the way most people would think a city should be laid out. In the center of town, there is a highway with no exits with road running parallel to it without any entrances, or so it seems. Basically, road don't have names, shops and homes are set in Blocos and Quadras, and it's very difficult to turn left. Also, most shops are small, one type of product shops. For example, the fabric shops do not have sewing supplies, just fabrics. The sewing machine shops have parts for machines but are not located in the same bloco or shopping center as the fabric stores. The other thing is that shopping areas are based on common themes (for example light fixtures or fabrics) and are grouped together. Most surprising is that a city that was built with the intent to make everyone drive everywhere, there are very few places to actually park a car at shopping areas.

We did manage to purchase needles, and then headed over to the fabric district and explored five or six different fancy fabric stores that were all placed next to each other. The first shop was a costume shop. It had no fabrics, but we discovered a kind of cross between a craft store and a costume supply shop without any make-up (just face paint). Of course there would be costume shops with craft supplies considering the elaborate outfits that are created for Carnival.

Then we went to the dress fabric stores and saw some of the most beautiful (and expensive) fabrics I had ever seen. This must have been the fancy fabric stores. None of them had everyday cotton prints, just linens, silks, garbadines, and high end polyester prints. We were looking for faux fur for Jacob's costume, and we happened into a shop with some very friendly and talkative ladies who just happened to be the only one of the shops that had some fake fur in the basement. We spent several minutes with them exchanging words trying to learn how to say in Portuguese the various types of fabrics. I think it will be fun to return and explore some more.

Week 11: Sack of Emergency

2010-11-01T20:51:00.000-03:00

Saturday was a pretty busy day for us. We packed in shopping at Sam's Club, picking up the car from the shop and helping to decorate the church for the Primary's Halloween party in the morning.

Our car had been in the shop for about a week and a half. About two weeks after we purchased the car, the engine started to overheat. I think it might have had something to do with fact that there was no oil in the engine, a small detail I forgot to check during the purchase process. It also needed a new clutch pedal cable and some adjustments to the air conditioning. Fortunately, all of these items were covered under the purchase warranty, and the from the shop sent a tow truck to our home to pick up the car. (Getting the car to the shop was the hardest part due to my work schedule, the lack of a second car, and a small language barrier in trying to explain why I couldn't drive an overheating car.)

Well, when I retrieved the car, the warning light turned on letting me know that it was low on fuel. I decided that there must be just enough gas left to get home, maybe. Fortunately, Rebecca chose to follow me home in the minivan we are borrowing because I ran out of gas just before reaching the bridge to Lago Sul.

It turns out that the route that I took home had no gas stations, and even though I took a wrong turn and ended up driving past the U.S. Embassy, I couldn't get gas there because I forgot my I.D. badge to get into the compound.

I pulled over, thinking at first that maybe the engine had a mysterious stalling issue, then remembered that it had no fuel. Rebecca pulled up behind me, and she waited with the car while I went to the nearest gas station to find out if I could get a bottle of fuel for my car.

When I got to the station and explained to the attendent that I did not need her to put gas in the minivan (yes, all pumps are full-service in Brasilia), but that my other car had run out of gas in Portuguese (again, more vocabulary we did not cover in class), she suddenly lit up and told me I needed a "Saco de Emergencia". She then ripped a bag off a stack and asked me how much fuel I wanted. The sack of emergency has spout on one end and a few holes for grabbing and carrying. It cost about US$8 for the sack and a gallon of fuel. The difficult part was holding the bag shut while driving back to the disabled car. The sack does not come with a closure device. Fortunately, the minivan is an automatic.

Back at the car, Rebecca says that no one slowed down or stopped to offer assistance. In fact, several drivers honked and barely managed to swerve in time to miss the car before merging. I guess flashing lights, a raised hood, and a person standing on the berm next to the car were not enough to show that this car was not going to move. It didn't help that the car had stopped in the left lane of the highway.

Transferring fuel to car was as easy as pouring a stiff plastic bag of liquid into a wide-mouthed jar. The car started right up, and we finished the drive home. I am not sure that "sacks of emergency" would work in the U.S. due to the different type of gas tank spouts there, but it certainly was handy in helping me get my car going again. And I didn't have to worry about returning a gas can.

Week 11: Pumpkin Carving

2010-11-01T20:22:00.000-03:00

Halloween is a popular holiday here in Brasilia, but only really practiced on a small scale at various parties. Trick-or-Treating and pumpkin carving have not caught on. It might be a matter of the lack of resources. For example, we have been searching for a pumpkin or some other type of squash that might work well for making a Jack-O'-Lantern, but we were unsuccessful. In fact, we didn't even find very many pictures of carved pumpkins or other Halloween themed decorations either. This is the closest thing we could find at the grocery stores and produce markets.

It's an orange-colored squash, called "abobora" (ah-BO-bo-rah) in Portuguese. It has the general shape of a pumpkin, but it has definitely been cultivated for eating, not for carving like the pumpkins found in the U.S. The skin and flesh are very thick and the hollow area for the seeds is small. The overall size is more saucer-like, too.

Well, trying to carve and then light such an object did not seem like fun. I saw a few pitiful examples of Jack-O'-Lanterns at the school's Halloween carnival. This type of pumpkin just would not do. It would be too much work for a unsatisfactory result.

So we decided to try watermelons, which turned out to be very easy (and tasty) for hollowing out and then cutting faces. Emptying out the larger watermelon kept Sam busy for about 40 minutes. Next year I would like to a get several of the little watermelons and make ensemble. We also plan on trying to grow pumpkins in our vegetable garden.

Rhinoceros Beetle

2010-10-24T22:25:00.000-03:00

Along with the little June bugs, these rhinoceros beetles have been flying at night since the rains began. I found this one in the pool along. A week later, I picked up the carcasses of 17 beetles, male and female (without the horns), in a courtyard at the church. These beetles are about 2 inches long and large. They are super cool.

Week 9: One week after the first rains

2010-10-24T22:20:00.000-03:00

One week and three heavy storms later, the grass was turning green and much less crunchy. We even got the Halloween decorations up.

Along with the rains we have also had a burst of insect activity. The cicadas are out and filling the air with their buzzing. There's also some sort of bug that sits on in the bushes near the back porch and calls between 6PM and 8PM every evening. It sounds just like a buzzing electrical transformer that is about to go out. It can be difficult to tell the difference between bug noises and electrical noises here.

We've also had a burst of activities from beetles that look very much like the June bugs in the U.S. Every night, these beetles fly around the lights in near the pool, and the Jacob gets removes about 50 or so that drowned in the pool from the night before.

Week 8: First Rain

2010-10-24T21:52:00.000-03:00

On October 2nd, the first major rain of the rainy season reached our home. This photo shows a portion of our back yard and what it looked like after four months without rain. It was very dry, and there had been several brush fires, large and small, in the area, even quite a few on the margins of town along the roads. Smoke, dust and ash had filled the air, and got on everything leaving a constant layer of reddish dust with black flecks on everything. There were definitely paths through the dust on floors were we walked more often.

The air during the dry season is very dry too, down below 20% humidity most of the time. The medical office at the embassy suggests drinking about a pint or so of water every hour. At school, the kids carried water bottles, and outdoor physical activity was limited. We were told that the Federal District state government actually closed schools for due to the dry weather for a couple of days last year, just like a snow day back in the U.S.

Despite the dryness, the leaves on the hedges were still green and the mango trees were growing fruit. There were even trees with leaves. One nice thing about the dry (o seco) was the lack of mosquitos. And the beautiful sunny days.

Week 4: After the Parade

2010-10-17T21:03:00.000-03:00

Following the parade, the Brazilian Air Force stunt flying team performed. Brazil is a major manufacturer of prop airplanes, and they supply military and commercial fleets around the world. The pilots who flew during this show were expcetionally good and the show was quite entertaining. I especially like the stall and free-fall stunts and the close flying formations.

Near us was an ice cream vendor, and he was having a promotion (sale) of only one "real" (Brazilian dollar) per container. That ice cream was the best and least expensive ice cream we have had so far in Brasilia. The flavors were strawberry, strawberry/chocolate, mango, pineapple and maracuja (passion fruit). It was totally worth seeing the parade just for the ice cream. By the way, ice cream sold in the supermarket runs for about R$13 to R$17 per liter, and it's tastes old. We also have a frozen yogurt stand near our home, but the price there is about R$7 for the size we got at the parade.

There were several types of vendors at the parade: agua de coco (coconut water), hats, cotton candy, pastels, popcorn, jewelry, and even the enterprising folks with coolers of water and beer.

There were no receptacles for garbage on the parade grounds. The entire area was covered with plastic bottles, political flyers, cans and other trash. Everyone just used their container and dropped it on the ground when done. Joseph, Emma and I couldn't stand to just leave our trash on the ground, so I picked up an empty plastic bag and hauled our trash to an overflowing receptacle near the cathedral.

We walked from the parade site to the US Embassy trying to find a taxi to take us home. We decided that it would be easier for us to explain to a taxi driver to get us at the embassy than try to describe where we were on the Planalto. I tried to wave a couple of taxis down while were walking, but was denied. It was a hot, dry and sunny day. I got very sunburned because I forgot sunscreen and let Sam wear my hat. Besides, walking a few blocks only added to the adventure, thrill and misery of the day.

At the embassy, I called for two cars. Soon after I called, a single taxi arrived. I thought I had been clear that we needed two cars. Then I looked inside and saw that the driver already had two passengers. He told us that he could take us home, then told his passengers to get out (I think they may have been family members). I feebly asked where the other car was, and then we loaded all eight of us and the stroller into a car that's about the size of a Toyota Corolla. On the way home, we passed the two taxis I had ordered. It was a very fast drive home, and I felt a little bad for not waiting for the other taxis, but I guess that's life for taxi drivers.

Week 4: Brazil Independence Day Parade

2010-10-17T20:36:00.000-03:00

We took a couple of taxis to get to the parade from our house because we didn't have a car. Also, it probably would have been difficult to find a place to park. It certainly was difficult to find a place to watch the parade and get a decent view. The city did set up a several bleachers that held about a couple of thousand people, but we did not arrive early enough, nor did we have the right credentials to be able to sit in that area.

We ended up being with the people and got to practice our Portuguese. The city also set up a row of fences in order to prevent people from stepping out into the parade route. They also posted military police officers every 20 feet or so along the parade route to remind us to stay on our side of the fence. One of the unfortunate consequences of the fence is that it didn't allow for anyone in the front to sit, so there was no good way to get a good view unless you were in the front, climbed a tree, or we're over six feet tall. I managed to find a small bump to stand on by the side walk and hold my camera up to see the parade through the view screen.

None of use qualified in that way, but little children have a way a getting to the front in Brazil. Our parade viewing neighbors grabbed our smallest children, commenting on their beauty, and passed them up to the fence and then over to the other side of the fence where they were able to sit on the road and watch. My kids were a little hesitant to leave us, but it was a better view. They were a little disappointed that no one threw candy from the tanks.

Week 4: Brazil Independence Day Parade

2010-10-17T20:23:00.000-03:00

The day after the US Labor Day, we went to Brasilia to watch their Independence Day Parade. It was very much like any US parade with marching bands, bagpipe bands, people dressed in native clothing, school kids marching, and representatives from every branch of the military services. There were even a few fly-bys from Brazil's Air Force. The parade also included various military vehicles, fire trucks and finished with a host of horses and riders from the Palace Guard.

The Determined Turtle and the Alligator

2010-10-17T20:18:00.000-03:00

We visited the National Zoo of Brasilia yesterday, and one of the pens was full of turtles (tartarugas) and two alligators (jacare). The alligators did not move for the 15 minutes or so that we stood and watched them. Jacob was pretty sure that they were fake, but then the jacare blinked. One turtle was determined to get on top of this living log, tried from the tail and failed, and then went for the approach behind the head. We did not see the little turtle climb on top of the gator before we moved on to another pen with a very large crocodile.

Week 4: Brazilian Political Campaigns

2010-10-17T20:14:00.000-03:00

Not found in the official parade were politicians, but their were several unofficial parades on the mall and even up and down the road that ran parallel to the official parade route with supporters of political candidates displaying flags, kites, and giant paper mache caricatures. In Brazil, all the voting is done electronically. The numbers are punched in by voters to select their candidates. There are about 30 official political parties, the largest being that of the current president, the Partido de Trabalhadores (PT, Worker's Party). These numbers are as important as the names of the candidates, if not more so. The first two numbers indicate which party and link them to the presidential candidates: 13 = PT, Dilma Rouseff, for example. I enjoy the political fervor Brazilians have. They are also required by law to vote, and do so on the first Sunday in October, a day when most people would not have to work. Signs with numbers on them and friendly faces are everywhere, including the back windows of cars. Most of the roadside displays have people waving flags. They also seem to be portable, because the displays get removed by the campaigners and a different group will be in the same place the next day.

Inside the Lago Sul Ward Chapel

2010-10-12T11:52:00.001-04:00

The chapel has a rostrum that is very much like other LDS chapels. I like all of the natural light that the windows bring into the room during our morning meetings, though I'm told that it get pretty hot if you happen to sit on the east side of the chapel in the direct sunlight. The chapel does have central A/C, but the large windows also can be opened to let the breezes through on cooler days. None of the benches are attached to floor and so this room doubles as a cultural center for dinners, dances and other events, and the rostrum can be a turned into a little stage for performances.

LDS Chapel, Lago Sul

2010-10-12T11:47:00.001-04:00

This is where we attend church on Sundays with the other members of the Lago Sul Ward. It's a nice little building with some very functional features for this climate. All of the windows are large and can be opened in order to allow cross breezes. Also, the flooring is all tile making it very easy to clean. That's especially important considering how dusty it is around here during the dry season. And probably is helpful for cleaning up the mud during the rainy season. It is painted a light green (sea foam green in Crayola colors), and has a tile roof. The detailing inside is wood and granite. Unlike the LDS chapels in the USA, it does not have a steeple. About 150 people attend church here on Sundays.

Week 4: Rock Climbing at Itiquira Falls

2010-10-10T23:07:00.000-04:00

Swimming below the falls wasn't good enough for my kids, so they decided to try and climb rocks up and approach the main falls from the river. Jacob started it, then Sam had to try too. And Lillian and Emma. And then I decided I had better keep up with them just to make sure we, err, they could stay safe. (OK, I like to climb rocks, too.)
We managed to get up three terraces before the rocks got steeper and the climbs higher. I called them off the attempt, and then we tried to figure out the safest way to come back down. The trail along the river was a bit too far, and there was quite a bit of underbrush and scrubby trees. I was the only one wearing sandals, so it didn't look like a comfortable hike.
We decided to go back the way we came, with the exception that we would lower the kids down to me on the face of the rocks. The current was little strong, and the rocks were quite slippery by going the way the water was moving. We all made it back to the swimming. I lept in since it was more fun that way.

Week 4: Swimming at Itiquira Falls

2010-10-10T22:56:00.000-04:00

Freezing cold and having a blast. The water was cold enough that even though the outside air temperature was in the 90's F, I would continue to shiver for several minutes. I was still shivering even after drying off.

Week 4: Cliff jumping at Itiquira Falls

2010-10-10T22:52:00.000-04:00

Jacob and I discovered that the swimming hole was at least eight feet deep. I swam out to the middle and went down until it was too cold to stay. Then he climbed up the wall and jumped in. Then I did. Then Joseph. And Sam wanted to try too, so I threw him in. I have never seen Sam swim so fast before, and he did quite well for his age group competing on the swim team this past summer. Between the current and the cold water, we all swam just a little faster.

Jacob and I also tried to swim up to the little water fall at the head of the pool. Jacob made it, but my older, out-of-shape for the kind of intense swimming couldn't make it there directly. I can now understand how people can get exercise in those current-based lap pools. It was fun trying to challenge myself against the current. After two or three attempts, I managed to approach the falls from the side, and then rush forward with the current downstream.

Week 4: Swimming below Itiquira Falls

2010-10-10T22:43:00.000-04:00

Just downstream from the falls, there are several pools of freezing cold water that we were able to swim in. The water was slow and deep and clear. There were even a few fish darting around despite the invasion of humans into their territory.

We all had a fun time swimming and climbing on the rocks around the pool. Emma was learning about rocks in her science class at school, so when she found interesting rocks, she would show them to me.

The park had a couple of shelters for changing near the swimming holes, so we were able to change our clothes before and after the swim, though the air was dry enough that we probably would have been completely dry before we reached our cars. It was about a 500 meter walk from the parking lot to the falls.

Week 4: Itiquira Falls

2010-10-10T22:34:00.000-04:00

On the US Labor Day, we made our first trip outside of Brasilia and the Distrito Federal state. We went with a couple of other families in our ward to see Salto de Itiquira near the town of Formosa. The falls are supposed to be the second tallest in Brazil, and they are quite pretty. The Cerrado in general is fairly flat, and the area surrounding the falls is agricultural, with large soybean farms and cattle ranches. At this time, everything is very dry since it hasn't rained since May. There are have been hundreds of brush fires, and the cows looked like they haven't had anything to eat or drink in months.

The falls were quite pretty, and impressive, set in a little park not too far off the main road. There were several Brazilian families who had come up from Sao Paulo sharing the cool, moist breezes coming off the falls as well.

Caju

2010-10-10T22:14:00.000-04:00

This is probably one of the more unusual fruits that we have encountered in Brazil, the caju (KAW-joo). It is the fruit that accompanies the cashew nut. Apparently, it's too delicate and perishable for shipping, so it's one of those tropical fruits that you need to be on location to try.

The green knob on the end is the cashew nut, but it is poisonous until it's cooked. The fruit part has soft, spongy texture, with a sweet, fruity flavor. It has a slightly bitter after-taste and leaves a film on the tongue. The skin is very thin, soft and a bit waxy. We did not eat the skin.

We first encountered the fruit in juice form at the hotel we stayed at in Sao Paulo. When we saw the fruit at the store, Joseph insisted that we purchased it to sample. I prefer the juice to the fruit, though it's not the kids' favorite juice.

Brazilian Products: Sucrilhos

2010-10-03T23:05:00.000-04:00

Tony the Tiger has a presence in Brazil, but I don't know if he's called Tony here. His Frosted Flakes are called Sucrilhos (Sue-CREE-lows), and they taste pretty much the same as the ones made and distributed in the US, but cost about $1.50 more for the large box. Also, on the box this size, there label is also in Braille, on the front side near Tony's right cheek. Our sponsor included this box of cereal and a few boxes of milk in our welcome kit. The kids enjoyed having the sugary cereal, which is about the only kind of cereal one can get here.

Week 2: Botanical Gardens Flowers

2010-10-03T23:00:00.000-04:00

Despite the dryness, there are still several trees and other plants with flowers. There are even mangoes and papayas growing on the trees. It's like they weren't told that plants aren't supposed to grow and reproduce when it hasn't rained in three months.

Ants of Brazil: The Big Head No Butt Ant

2010-10-03T22:57:00.000-04:00

There are a lot of different kinds of ants here, so here is the first in the continuing series "Ants of Brazil". I have no idea what kind of ant is pictured here. I saw it crossing the gravel, noticed that it has a huge head and a tiny abdomen, and I thought it looked cool. This one was about the size of a nickel, but it's legs would extend to edges of a quarter.

Week 2: Nipple Tree

2010-10-03T22:51:00.000-04:00

Before coming to Brazil, I had done some research on the flora and fauna of the Pantanal, and I read about a tree called the nipple tree, but I could not find a photo. A Google image search did not result in relevant pictures. For those of you searching, this is a nipple tree, and it has fruit the size of cannonballs.

Week 2: Cerrado trail and Useful plants

2010-10-03T22:41:00.000-04:00

We hiked along a paved trail that brought us through a part of the gardens that preserved the scrubby plants of the Cerrado. It looked a lot like an area from the desert-side of a mountain in Utah or California, but different. One of the differences are these huge termite/ant mounds. Usually they rise like organic towers from the ground, but they can also be found in trees.

As we entered this trail, there was a series of photographs of Brazilian wildlife: spiders, ants, birds, fish, and snakes. None of which we saw on this trail, but Abby was convinced that because the pictures showed snakes, there were definitely going to be snakes along the trail. I told her that as long as we stayed on the trail, we would probably be safe from snakes. She reluctantly agreed to go on the trail, worried about snakes every step of the way, until we saw the monkeys.

There is also a children's area in the Botanical Gardens that included a raised planters with useful plants. My forehead really could have used some of that aloe after being out in the sun all day on the Brazilian Independence Day.

Week 2: Fiat Doblo

2010-10-03T22:29:00.000-04:00

Our second weekend in Brasilia, we rented a miniature minivan. Lillian decided that it was the ugliest car she has ever seen and was totally embarrassed by having to ride in it. It also only had 7 seats, so one of the kids sat on the floor, and a 1.6L engine (not much umph). It also cost about US$300 for a two-day rental. Cars are expensive here.

Week 2: Look, Squirrel!

2010-10-03T22:18:00.000-04:00

I have been having trouble getting my kids to look at the camera. So I yelled, "Look, Squirrel!" and they turned for the camera. By the way, I have yet to see any small mammals other than cats, dogs and a the occasional monkeys here in Brasilia. Oh, and a few bats.

The Botanical Gardens has an orchid house, but there were only two orchids in bloom when we visited. The guide noted that this was the last weekend the building was going to open before being shut down for renovation.

One thing I have noticed about Brazilian architecture is that the buildings have an open feel to them and generally and real interaction between the outside and inside of the building. Very few public buildings have enclosed walls, most restaurants extend an awning to create the eating spaces, and even stores open up to the outside rather than use doors.

Week Two: Brasilia Botanical Gardens

2010-10-03T22:06:00.000-04:00

Our second weekend in Brasilia, we visited the Botanical Gardens that are just on the outskirts of town. This is a large park that preserves biomes of the Cerrado (pronounced "Say-ha-do"), the name of the savannah-like area used to describe this part of Brazil. I think it looks a lot like west Texas or New Mexico.

This area is currently in the dry season. When we visited, the last time it rained was in May. I am impressed by the amount of green despite the lack of rain. This leaf and seed pod the kids found were from a huge tree not too far from the visitor's center called a Pau-de-Balsamo.

Frog-skin Melon

2010-10-03T21:49:00.000-04:00

Part of our adventure here in Brazil includes trying a range of fruits, vegetables and other foods that we have not tasted in the USA. During our first shopping trip to Sam's Club Brasilia, a store very similar in layout to the Sam's Clubs in the USA, but with completely differently products, I found this melon called Melao de Pele de Sapo--a Frog-skin Melon. It has a yellow-undertone with green streaks and wart-like bumps on the rind.

Inside the melon, the flesh is an off-white to a pale yellow with an aroma very similar to honey dew. The seeds are large and white. It was difficult to tell if it was ripe, but I used the same technique I use on cantaloupe that my brother taught me: press on the end that attached to the vine. If it's a bit "soft," it's ripe. I also smell the aroma of the melon. It should give off the odor of sweetness.

The melon was sweet and had the texture similar to a honey-dew. It's definitely worth trying again.