After giving thanks for the lack of gunfire in my community in recent months...

tonight brings us rudely back to reality, with the trilling machine guns and snapping revolvers, which, I'm sure, I could see in tracer fire-like red arcs if I had the stupidity and courage to look out the window. But then, the buildings would probably be in my way. From the sound of things, it's on another street.

Several people posted comments recently, saying really nice ego-boosting things about how I was a hero or that they admired the work I do. Thanks. Sometimes, on nights like this, I need a bit of solid reassurance because God doesn't always sound quite so loud when the "voice of reason" tells me to lie on the floor and start thinking about buying a home, or, at the very least, invest in armor-plating the rental I'm currently in.

Dogs go crazy at gunfire. And people get kind of antsy too. Imagine.

I'm reminded of a story I once heard about some missionaries who made a fake, darkly ironic travel promo for the place they were serving while lying under the table during a routine bombing. "Welcome to Baghdad. Your adrenaline will race, your agility will increase and property values are low, low, LOW! All Christmas specials include gas mask, bulletproof vest, and a collection of sedatives for your comfort. Enjoy your stay! If you need anything, anything at all, inquire at the hotel desk. Desk may be unoccupied during peak bombing hours..." Stuff like that. Reminds me of home...

=) But I was writing to talk about my comments. Got sidetracked. Sorry.

Thanks for writing! I know I owe some responses and they're in the works...just give me time to get a good night's sleep and process some things and I'll have something up in a day or two.

Oh, and pray for us. Because I know I'm not the only person who finds it hard to sleep with gunfire. And someone out there is shooting...and being shot at.

Thanks.

Oh. The power just went out. Or at least the street lights, which means that the tank is on my street.

My little sister who does more daring things than me says that she likes to keep her guardian angels in good shape. Rest assured that mine are attaining hitherto untold protective assignments, and they're doing a good job. Thank you JESUS!!!

And now I go to bed, having used my blog as an escape mechanism and assured myself of many comments from frantic friends and family. That was NOT intended. ;) But I appreciate knowing that YOU are also alive!!!

Beijos,

Jenna

The Brown Nemesis

Growing up, whenever we had company, principally the in-laws, my mother always seemed to have a problem with cockroaches. Wood roaches, to be specific. They are medium-sized things that flitter and flut and only appear when least desired. Like during dinner. Or just before retiring to bed. Cockroaches to me are not a symbol of unsanitary living conditions—they are a lighthouse beacon that the house is spotless. So spotless that the Insect’s Human Morality Monitoring Committee decides to nip the sin of pride in the bud and send an unannounced visitor in...

In Brazil, it seems impossible to rid a home of cockroaches. They are large and hideous, brown crunchy things that ooze yellow liquid when squashed. I have nearly broken my finger due to their malevolence, as I wrote about here. From the fanciest apartment building in the Zona Sul to the humblest shack in the favelas, the dark underworld of the undead moves about, silently occupying corners until an appropriate moment...

I once dreamt about a roach, whose delicate legs were crawling on my bare skin, and I could feel even in my dream the slight itch that accompanied each step, the whooshing sound of his feelers. I awoke so revolted that I ran to shower and remove the dream residue (because perhaps I wasn’t dreaming. Horrific thought.)...and then shook my bedclothes out thoroughly.

Tonight, ushering friends to the door after a huge Thanksgiving meal, I hear my friend scream and jump onto a nearby bench. My Supportive Boyfriend raises his eyes and returns to his internet browsing. The screamer’s brother becomes concerned. The other guys are standing around laughing. I am confused until I see the brown lump in the corner. Of course. I’ve been visited by the cockroach morality squad. Great.

But then...when one of the guys attacks with a nearby shoe, Officer Roach spreads his wings and...FLIES. Straight at us.

Why did I not know that the big ones fly too??? Shouldn’t someone have warned us? Isn’t that mandatory 8th grade biology information?

So we have eight adults dodging aerial attacks, one oblivious to the situation and one screaming on a stool. Our swatting is ineffective and Ben comes to the rescue with a can of Raid. Unfortunately, that just causes the thing to run up and down the stairs like a drunken marathon runner.

“It’ll die here in a couple of minutes...”

A couple of minutes is long enough for them to regenerate, oh, who knows, a new head? Spawn others of its kind? No.
And so, with incredible courage, and a brand-new leather sandal in hand, I kill the roach with one fell blow.

And escape unscathed.

Arch-nemesis, you have not defeated me. I’ve left your carcass at the door to deter others...or maybe to feed that stray cat that keeps on pissing on my doormat.

Stray cat, you DO NOT WANT to be my enemy.

Ben's Saquarema Photos

I still don't have a digital camera...and I forgot to buy real film, so the other Fleshies took pictures on our retreat...these are all from Ben, our on-field photographer.

We stayed at a pousada with seven other guests, two sweet and silent Irish girls, five pot-smoking, drunken, obnoxious and slovenly surfers from English-speaking countries once populated by English convicts. (I'll be discussing them in more detail in another blog entry...) The most interesting part of my non-interations with them were the tall one's excellent tattoos and listening to their accented curse words as they tried to figure out why breakfast was not ready for them at noon...

This is the view from the front:





The classic Jenna-on-a-beach photo:


Me and my "little sis:"


Some pictures from the rocks below the Saquarema church...I was in paradise: the rocks, the sunset, the waves...

Saturday Night: The Afternoon and Party

Saturday was hot and humid and hot and muggy and humid and hot, hot, hot. I am not ready for summer. The bus to Barra took over a half an hour to arrive, and it was already full when I flagged it down. That meant an hour of trying to stand, being squished by fat ladies who misjudged the space their bodies would take up and thought that me, my bones, and a metal pole would somehow all seamlessly mesh together to provide a clear path for them to scurry through...an hour of men averting their eyes so they didn't have to feel guilty for not giving up their seat to the standing women. The Barra bus from this side of town goes over the mountains, which means switchbacks and speed...turning a R$2.40 ride into a very cheap rollercoaster ticket. And gym, all in one. Because my arms certainly got a workout from trying to keep the rest of my body upright!

Battered, bruised and with wobbly sea-legs, I arrived at the New York City Center, complete with a replica of the Statue of Liberty, a TGI Fridays, and an Outback Steakhouse. Barra is like a tribute to Miami. (I've never been there, actually, but it's the vision I have...either Miami or an apocalyptic waste town...) It is consumption heaven. The WMF people were meeting there to celebrate Rich's birthday with a trip to the arcade. This may sound slightly odd, but please keep in mind:
1. It is hot. The mall is air-conditioned.
2. This is THE most high tech arcade you have ever been to.

Welcome to The HOT ZONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not, it's not a porno palace. The Hot Zone has various games, flat screen televisions, monster truck rides, things that fly you up and around like some sort of amusement part contraption, shooting games (18 and older but yay! I wasn't carded), dance-dance marathon thingies, old-school pinball, basketball hoops, slot machines, air hockey, and a couple of padded chairs for the worn out and weary. There were Indy 500 cars and Nascar games, dirt bikes and Harley Davidson's, and something that looked like virtual reality.

I've already visited this place once before. My favorite section is...

Guns.

Don't tell my father.

I'm mostly non-violent, but, well, I LOVE first-person shooter games. Even more if the gun is heavy and pink and lets me do a little re-loading action. And if I'm killing zombies that spurt green blood when they die and don't get to imbed their knives into my face...

Good news, zombies of the world: I'm also a TERRIBLE shot. So you have nothing to fear, other than my enthusiasm!

Last night, I also raced an 18-wheeler down Route 66, in a ridiculous first attempt that ended in about 45 seconds. I do not know how to drive stick. Pretending doesn't help matters. And I don't know how to break around a curve with a weighted trailed behind me...and so I wasted a good 2 reis on a game that just made me feel bad about my driving skills....

Next up was a jocky race with Ben, on two "horses" missing their ears, legs, and pretty much any horse-like identifying features, other than a saddle and a bridle, a vaguely horse shaped head that turned to the right and to the left, and two horsebeating whip buttons. Animal rights activists would NOT like this game. Neither did I, but for other reasons.

I realized only too late that this game involved excessive amounts of physical exertion. I was not only directing the horse down the racetrack. I was supposed to actually RIDE the thing. This involved arm pumping, head turning, and lower body movement that wasn't exactly appropriate for public spaces and small children. At first, it was humorous, but then my arms started to feel the burn...and I noticed the many pairs of eyes watching...and let my milllion dollar purse and the first place title go to a computer jockey who wasn't embarassing herself by bouncing her butt up and down on a plastic horse in the middle of a crowd of strangers...

Ben and his superior stamina beat me at the jockey game, but it left us both with ravenous hunger. So much so, that while we were all deciding what to order at the food court and searching for free tables, Ben and C- sat down at an previously occupied table and began snarfing down the quarter of a slice of pizza that was lying uneaten on the plate...

I think we were a bit disruptive... =)

But it was certainly a wonderful way to celebrate a birthday. Automatic weapons, fast cars, pizza (both fresh and recycled), and lots of friends....who could ask for more? Happy Birthday, Rich!

Saturday Night 9:30-11:00 pm

Last night, I had to take a taxi because the bus I rode was inexplicably wrong. And I didn’t realize it until much, much too late. The 179 bus has, apparently, three very different routes. One goes to the Zona Norte. I didn’t take that one. The other two go to the central bus station by way of the Zona Sul. One goes through Botafogo. This was the bus I should have taken. Thirty minutes from Barra to Botafogo. But no. I took the third option, which takes its sweet hour an a half down to move through the slow streets of Gavea, Leblon, Ipanema, Copacabana, before racing off on the Aterro de Flamengo.

When I realized that I was not going where I wanted to, we were already on the Aterro. The Aterro is dangerous at night, empty and void of anything but grass and shadows. Obviously, I'm not quite reckless enough to wander around there at 10:30 pm. I waited until the two heavy metal dudes sitting in front of me got up to get off. They were my best bets on the "safety in groups" people on the bus...skinny, quirky punks who looked tough but weren't. They were nice and would have escorted me across the road, but I managed to hail a taxi first. Actually, the taxi stopped before I signaled. That should have been my first warning sign.

The taxi driver was professional until we arrived in Botafogo. Then, Mr. Creepy set in. First, he doesn’t actually know how to get to the address I gave him. I give him the name of a major road but forget that my street is one-way. So he drives me to the tail end of the street, where it merges into another road. This is not where I want to be.

“Here’s your road, but you’re gonna have to walk, or pay for me to loop around.”
The meter is already at 14 reis. What’s another six or so?
“Loop around. I forgot it was one way...I should have had you go down a couple of streets... I just want to get home.”
“You don’t know anything, do you?” he mutters under his breath, in a tone that suggests he might take a detour with me in the car and that perhaps I would be dumb enough to not notice that he was taking me far, far away from where I wanted to go.
“Actually, I do know Botafogo pretty well, but only walking. And I guess I never pay attention to whether the roads are one way or not...”

Creepy Taxi Guy begins to stop at red lights. This is an anomaly for taxi drivers anywhere, but especially odd for Rio. He turns around to stare at me, even as the light turns green. “You’re really pretty,” he leers, a statement that’s as ominous as it is insulting. “You’re not from around here, are you? Where do you live? Where are you from?”

At this point, I realize the vulnerable position I am in as a woman, and wisely decide to do a little lying. I give him a fake name, the wrong bairro, and remind him that I am going to meet my boyfriend and that I’m running late. As in, drive faster, do your job, stop trying to be friendly...

“You have a cell phone? What’s the number?”

We’re almost there. I want to get out of the car. I’m paying the ridiculous fare (higher because it's Saturday night), but he’s not giving me my change without a number. So it’s made-up number land, something that slips off the tongue faster than I thought possible...He hands me my change and I’m bolting from the taxi, hoping that Tiago will understand why I’m two hours late...and I’m shocked to discover that I am seven hours late.

But that's another story.

Sunday Scribblings: Heroes

Di is eight and a half months pregnant, her swollen stomach taut, belly button protruding like some vestigial organ, her eyes tired in this confusion of summer heat and winter rains. Rio de Janeiro can’t decide what season to adopt this November. Heat must be better than cold though, with the low ratio of blankets to bodies on the streets, and so I hope that this cold spell leaves before she gives birth. I’ve promised to come visit her in the hospital, if I find out in time.

Di has a “namorido,” a Portuguese neologism that combines “boyfriend” and “husband” into one compact new category. Brazilian law makes marriage difficult for the poor, so they’re just commonlaw. He is, however, the father of all four of her children. It’s written in their faces: each one of those girls has his thick, expressive unibrow! They’re a surprisingly intact and relatively functional family, in spite of their jaunts on and off the street. And so Di is one of my heroes. She manages to be a wife and a mother in situations so daunting that anyone in their “right” mind would probably throw themselves off a bridge or disappear and try to start life over again in another city, another name, another anything.

Last week we sat and talked for hours on her blanket, laughing at the commuters and their nosy curiosity, placing bets on which of the suited nervous guys were getting ready to smoke maconha, playing with her daughters, and talking about God and poverty and everything in between.

That happened with M- too, a friend who has lived on the streets since she was 9. M- lived through the Candelaria massacre. She lived through the random murders. She knows that any night, someone could drop a rock on her head while she’s sleeping, set her on fire. It happens here. She’s already nursing a broken foot from where a taxi driver ran her over. But she keeps on fighting. She’s trying to get off the streets, and at 34 or so would love to learn how to read. Her four children are in two different shelters and will be returned to her just as soon as she finds a place to live. With her husband, they manage to visit the kids two or three times a week, even though they’re in very distant areas of town from where she sleeps and begs and prays. M’s tears flow freely as she talks about Leticia in school; her mother’s heart aches for her to be with her, even in the most abject poverty, and yet her mother’s heart is willing to leave her there, with strangers, in spite of Leticia’s anguished cries every time she has to say goodbye...

Joana doesn’t live on the streets but in a favela, where she spent the last six months caring for a husband dying of untreated stomach cancer. He’d run away from the hospital once already, and she couldn’t force him back. He was as light as a broken bird, his limbs thin under paper skin. I thought of a paperback book we once had as children, a sort of war pornography, carelessly exhibiting photos of prisoners of the World Wars: their heads too large for their stick bodies, arms and legs hanging haphazardly from bodies too weak to carry them, stomachs oddly distended, at odds with the fragileness of the frame. That was what was left of her husband, a man who once worked on the docks, carrying heavy sacks as if they were tea bags.

The disease left him cruel, angry, bitter, the pain mounting into violent verbal and sometimes physical attacks. She stopped by my home one night, hoping for a little assistance to buy some pain medications. They had run out, and in desperation, he had attempted to stab her with a pair of scissors. She feared for her son and she feared for herself. Had things worsened, had she been in true danger, she was prepared to leave. But she saw the anguish in his eyes, the pain that warped him, and told me, “I don’t fight him because if I touched him, I would break his bones. He is so weak...”

Joana stayed with this man out of love, a love deeper than passion and deeper than even charity. She stayed because she hoped that her love could transform him, allow him to die surrounded by caring family, not in front of machines and an uninterested public hospital staff. Her commitment to this man who was day by day making her life a living hell speaks not to a masochistic bent, nor some kind of twisted “Christian” love, but a love that knows “for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part.” Joana’s sacrificial love lasted for a season. Her husband died a few weeks ago, and we were all relieved to know that his suffering was over. But her witness lives on.

These women are heroes to me not because of anything extremely heroic they’ve done, but because of the everyday heroism of their lives. The heroism of not giving up in the face of truly insurmountable obstacles. The heroism of finding food for your family day after day, of raising daughters on the street who say “please” and “thank you” and still know how to laugh as they play tag and dodge the urine pools. The heroism of loving someone else even when that love causes you to suffer. The heroism of fighting for a life, a life in society, at an age most street children don’t dream of attaining.

I am proud to know these women. They are my heroes in Brazil. They are my reason for hope, they are my prayers in the night, they are my sisters, my friends.

(names changed to protect identities)

My co-worker was stopped by the police the other day.

We found out because his wife called us in calm but frantic mode because the neighbors had poked their heads in to let her know that it looked like he'd be put in the car before it drove away...and she hadn't been able to get ahold of him on his cell. In Rio, this is usually bad news.

Thankfully, it all worked out fine.

His old ID, the expired one, was still in a pocket of his wallet. When they'd searched it through and through for drugs and found nothing, the cop decided to insist that he was illegal because of the expired ID, in spite of the current identification he was also carrying. They then put him in the car to see how much money they could extract out of him.

Bad move, dudes. This guy carries NO MONEY.

After driving around for a while, they decided to ask him, one last time, "if there was anything you'd like to offer us?"

"I'd like to offer you...this prayer that I pray against the violence in Rio..."



(you may laugh here. I did.)

Apparently, so did the cops, and let him go. A mile away from his destination, but at least out of the car. And he was able to call his wife.

We tell this story to our Brazilian friends and they tell us we're crazy. They're right. But dangit, it's blissfully FUN to be crazy. And imagine all the stories that would otherwise be lost!!!

Sunday Scribblings

I liked this idea...will be doing more of this! Sunday Scribblings gives a writing prompt on Saturdays...

The prompt this week is a quote: "I don't want to be a passenger in my own life." (Diane Ackerman)


I don’t want to be a front seat passenger. I can’t read maps. And driving makes me nervous, even with someone experienced in the front seat, letting me know where to turn and stop and find the best roadside café.

I like being a back seat passenger, because I don’t have to do anything other than sit and be quiet. I can read a book, curl up in a ball and let the movement rock me to sleep. I can stare out the window and daydream into a stupor. I can escape.

The truth is, in life, I usually take shotgun. I start grabbing the map and reinterpreting it, getting things upside down and tangled up. I complain about the direction and the speed and the scenery but don’t do a single constructive thing that might change the route and put me onto level terrain again.

Sometimes I think things would be a lot better off it I just sat quietly...

Car imagery is prone to early failure and mechanical breakdown, metaphorically speaking. I prefer walking. It takes me down paths that are sometimes paved and sometimes not, muddy or rocky or covered with tiny white flowers that smell like summer and honeysuckle. Walking takes me through breathtaking terrain and breathshaking bairros. It’s hiking through forest and mountain, watching the sky and the ground simultaneously, going slow enough to take the beauty in and watch out for dangers, going fast enough that you can see where you’ve been but not quite exactly what’s over the next hill. And if you see something interesting, there;s a chance to bend down and look at it without worrying about causing an accident or going the wrong way down a one-way street. Cars move too quickly for me. They’re so efficient that there’s no time for anything else. I’ve lived without a car now for over two years. It’s lovely. I have time to think. I have time to read. I have time to talk to people. I save money on gym fees. But mostly, it lets me live more than I did before. Frees me to see God in the nature and people that I would have been protected from with my own ride, my own little bubble to take me to and from all those desperately urgent appointments. Frees me to slow down and get some perspective on life. Frees me to take a deep breath, close my eyes, and step out into the day, humming.

I don’t want to be a passenger in my own life. I want to get out of the car!

Meme 1.0

Meme taken from Ali, in whose blog I am honored to see my blog bookmarked!

a) Four jobs I have had in my life:_

*Student assistant at a university’s archives department, a job which allowed me to play detective among a huge collection of African paraphernalia, discover ancient Indian pornography (ironically found in the bowels of a very conservative Christian school!), and leaf through ancient books that no one else was allowed to touch.

*Waitress. Too many times to count.

*Telemarketer pushing credit cards and membership renewals for a major chain whose Brazilian branches don’t even sell peanut butter. So much for the “American Way,” Mr. Walton!

*Carnival worker running a cash only scam involving fishing rods, brown paper bags and small, disappointed children. I barely remember this, I was about 13. My parents allowed me to go, for some unexplicable reason, when the carnival managers sent all the drunk operators home for the evening...the fair had to go on, so they invited all the 4-H kids to stop by and make some money. I didn’t count my bills so well, and I’m pretty sure that they cheated me in my pay...and to top it off, really took the rebellious thrill out of the idea of running away with the circus. Nothing particularly glamorous about standing on your feet for hours.

b) Four movies I would watch over and over again:_

Pirates of the Caribbean
The Princess Bride
City of Lost Children (in the original French)
Any of the Sean Connery James Bond flicks. The spy toys...

c) Four places I have lived:_

Upland, Indiana
Lake City, Colorado
Lima, Peru
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

d) Four TV shows I like to watch:_

Seinfeld and Arrested Development (the dvd seasons...because this is Brazil and I refuse to use favela cable...)

Some stupid teenybopper girl detective show I watched nonstop in Peru, an American import whose name has slipped my mind, it being my link to English during my time living by the zoo...

Sometimes, sometimes, a novella. But I don’t have a television...

e) Four places I have visited:_

Russia
Wales
Nunspeet, the Netherlands
Australia

f) Four websites I visit daily:

Yahoo.com.br, for my daily exchange rate fix and quick news updates
Dooce.com
Orkut.com
I can’t go a day without Google. There’s always something I need to know...

g) Four places I would like to be right now:_

The Souphouse with a cup of chai in my hand, African music on the stereo, some salsa dancing happening, and good friends piled on the couches

In my parent’s hot tub, looking out over the Indiana hills

With Tiago

On a sailboat somewhere warm, watching the stars and listening to the waves

h) Four of my favorite foods:_

Mom’s lasagna
Strawberries
Fresh bread with butter
Okra

i) Four bloggers I'd like to respond:

Clearly, anyone that I haven’t heard from in quite a while...or ever. :)

Not having a digital camera, I must paint word pictures...

The Praça XV underpass is just a dingy grey median where the Linha Vermelha runs above and the buses leaving the Praça XV station head down to the Zona Sul or north, through the city center and out to the surrounding bairros. The fenced area provides a narrow but fairly expansive area for pedestrians rolling a quick joint to walk in relative privacy until their telltale purchase has been consumed, a place where fat, dirty little babies with huge grins take their first wobbly steps and play tag with their sisters, four tiny bare feet nimbly avoiding the urine pools...a place where businessmen in cheap suits and women in tottering heels walk quickly past, casting nervous glances at the human huddle by the railings. It’s here that families set up home with their plastic bags, cardboard sleeping mats and thick, smelly movers’ blankets. On Mondays, we disturb the commuters. With our singing and teasing and complete disregard for the sacred silence of public space. With banana peels thrown thoughtlessly over a shoulder and onto someone’s windshield, a process I am trying without success to quell! With our Frisbee games that frequently involve a missed disc that slides into the congested traffic, giving someone enough time to jump the fence, drop five feet to the road below, and grab our toy before some taxi runs it over. We disturb the commuters with our presence, mostly. I frequently wonder what the bus conversations are like after they pass us. There are times when I swear that whole buses will come together to discuss what exactly was happening as they passed us. After all, it’s not every day that people see a bunch of white foreigners playing tag with “street people.” It attracts attention. Like today, when we walked across the square and some guy we didn’t know called out, “Hey you!” We ignored him but he was persistent, this guy seated on the sidewalk with a cast on his leg up to the thigh but four other tough-ish looking guys seated beside him. “Hey you, with the glasses. Come here.” He was speaking to Rich, the only one in our group who really didn’t understand Portuguese...but when we came close, he started asking questions. Were we those people who always came down to play cards with the kids who hung out over there? He stayed on the street and he’d been watching us. Is this something we do on our free time? “When you stop and talk, it causes people to see that we’re not animals...maybe someday, they’ll stop and talk to us too...thank you. That’s really cool.”

Talking to A.L. and Di was great tonight. I played with all Di’s girls, who climbed all over me and pulled my hair and almost, almost bit me. We talked about hair removal and boys, favorite holiday foods and the rude people who stared. Di pointed out all the people who were using drugs as they passed...she was right every time! Di’s almost 9 months pregnant and she asked me if I’d come visit her in the hospital when she has her baby. I asked her if she’d been going to pre-natal care. “Huh? I’ve never gone to pre-natal.” Well. I hope this birth goes off without a hitch as well then...

She also wanted to know “what was the crazy idea behind why you guys moved to the favela?” So we talked for a while about WMF and God and poverty and how working on the streets changed when we were able to see and experience what poverty was like, to live in the environments that they’d left. I like talking to Di when she’s in a good mood, when she’s not high. A.L. too. They’re really fascinating women, full of questions and wisdom and experiences I want to draw out, women who laugh in the midst of horrid situations, who wish me God’s best as I leave and know that I’m going home to a real bed and warm clothes and maybe even a shower even as they eat their donated dinner out of a plastic bag.

That’s sacrificial love.

Funeral

Bazooka pink and studded with pearly teeth, the denture lay between the dried dirt clods that the gravedigger was pulling over the coffin. Perhaps I was the only one to notice the teeth being pulled into the grave for the second time, joining bits of old coffins and who knows what more as the ground was re-used for the final resting place of my friend’s husband. His mouth was parted and his hands hidden by the flowers they had packed around his body. I forever associate these flowers and caskets with flies and dried blood. I cannot get Jeferson’s face out of my head, nor the heat of the cemeteries here which bakes me dry and without tears.

On the entrance road, where mourners wait the arrival of the body, worn vendors sell their wares: water, sandwiche natural, fruit salad. Thin Mr. Frutas was easily in his seventies, with a wavering, insiduous voice and trembling hands. He carried his three styrofoam coolers like woman’s purses, their straps criss-crossing his shoulders, their contents fruit salads, small tortas, corn sweets, various toppings. A squirt bottle held a white sloshy liquid which he called “special sweetened condensed milk.” After encouraging a try from a plastic spoon, he asked his victim what the secret ingredient was, with a smile that made me shudder: would I want to know what the secret is, from a man who makes his living selling food among the dead? I expected embalming fluid, or urine of some unique species of graveyard cat, and from the look on the face of the tester, she did as well. But it was just guaraná. I guess it’s one way to save a bit on costs...

The mourners came in gaudy silver flip flops, blue jean mini skirts, halters and tube tops. I don’t know why I was so worried about finding something dark. So few of the mourners were in anything resembling black. The widow wore a red bikini as a bra under a brightly flowered halter top that easily could have been the nicest thing in her closet, black pants with three creamy white bands at the bottom. She hadn’t touched her hair from when I saw her that morning, when her tear-stained face appeared under my window and I knew without asking that it had finally happened.

It is sad to say that we were waiting for this death. It seems to demean us as humans somehow, saying that this loss of a husband, child, father, brother, friend was long-expected, or worse, welcome. Chosen. But he had. At least as much as this death had chosen him, this long cancer with its ravenous hunger. He ran away from the hospital when they’d tried to check him in, ran away from the chance to treat it before it rampaged his organs and stomach...he became violent with the pain, tried to beat his wife even though he’d become a skeleton. It was traumatizing to see the pain he was inflicting on himself and on his family. It was welcome to know that he was suffering no more...

And yet we cried.

Some little imp

who has nothing better to do on this freezing wet night just rang my doorbell for a good thirty seconds and banged all over my gate downstairs. It's locked. For good reason. To make sure punks like you stay downstairs, where the next time that happens I can spray you with water or worse...I love being a grumpy old woman!

Tonight is my last night of total house freedom for a while...I'm gaining one or more roommates until December. Ben needs a place to stay while he's looking for a place to rent and quarters are cramped at the place in Jacarezinho. Seeing as I kind of took his place a year ago, it's only fair that I offer him a place to sleep! But it will kind of be fun to have roommates...

Good news! My CPF card arrived in the mail this week, which means that I am now officially a "real person" and can do anything that requires good credit: buy a house, buy a refrigerator, rent movies (even if they're pirated), get 10% off at my favorite stores during my birthday month...Now all I'm waiting for is my ID card, which might be here in a month. But probably not. My visa might run out before I have my identification card...

That's Brasil for you.

Ciphers

I found this in my paper scraps to-do box. It was written with a mauve Sharpie on the ripped back of an envelope sometime in October:

Verde

J
Março
Preto
Erica
13
Bahia
oceano
casar

It makes absolutely no sense to me. When I found it, I was confused because I couldn’t even remember why I had it in the first place. Usually, I remember the quirkiest things. For example, a note that says “Newspaper praia kid” does not refer a boy selling newspapers on the beach. It refers to a boy lying down on a pile of newspapers in the favela (I think I’ve already shared this story). I see those three words and I remember the whole experience. "Hose god" was a picture I wanted to take of this kid who was watering nothing by the side of the river, letting water arc in a sharp brilliance against the green of the hillside and the intense darkeness of his skin, his posture like that of a Greek god in complete zen mode...But this? It doesn’t ring ANY bells. This is not a food list, or a to-do, or a prayer list. It doesn’t follow a dream, or what happened during the day, or even thoughts while watching a novela. It doesn’t even make sense “translated:”

Green

J
March
Black
Erica
13
Bahia (a state in Brazil)
ocean
to marry

Why do I write things down for which I forget not only the significance but also can’t even remember writing??? On the off chance that this is important, carries a key to the lottery in 2010, or is a code for where I hid a lot of money while sleepwalking one evening, I guess I’ll be keeping this scrap a bit longer. Any prophetic Daniels out there who want to try a hand at deciphering this one?

Monday Night Lazarus

Monday night is streets night, which means we go down with sandwiches and chocolate milk, do a Bible story, pray, play. This week, we invited a friend of ours, a lady who has become a sisterly figure to me, to come join us and see what it is we do. It was a wild night, as they always seem to be when anyone visits. A.L. was upset because we haven't taken her to get all her documents yet. Two of the boys were fighting and throwing things at each other. A tiny kid with a six-year old body and giant, hobbit feet put a styrofoam box over his head and began beating a syncopated and erratic rhythm on it, ignoring all our offers of food...Chinesa was wearing a huge wrap on her foot, tangled up in blankets, with a plastic shopping bag of rice and beans lying near her head. She was crying because a car had run over her foot the day before and she'd not been able to get any of the hospitals to treat her because the public health system is a near-failure and most of the hospitals are lacking not only basic resources, but actual DOCTORS. Her foot is clearly broken, so I gave her 800 mgs of ibuprofen. Talk about medical care. We had a really great evening together--sang songs, talked about how we'd start reading lessons, and read the stories of the widow's mite and Lazarus. I'd come across the Lazarus story in another book the other day and it had stuck in my mind. This isn't the back-from-the-dead Lazarus but the beggar Lazarus we're referring to...and the unique part of this story is exactly that the beggar has a name. Chinesa and I thought on that a little. How many times do we read in the paper that so-and-so was robbed by a punk, a street kid, a "bandito" from the favelas? They are always nameless, always faceless, the poor. A beggar dies in the street and no one comes to recognize the body. He gets buried under a numbered cross in a hideous graveyard far from the bustle of the city. And so Lazarus is part of this group. He's a nobody, so badly off that dogs actually do a better job of caring for him than any human. But Jesus gives him a name. Not the rich man. He's not important. He's important in the world. He's probably well-known, a respected leader in the business community, known for his acts of charity. After all, he did believe in the trickle-down economic model and let Lazarus eat the crumbs that fell from his table. Enough crumbs and maybe Lazarus could have bagged and sold them as crunchy topping/stuffing mix...and eventually made a fortune. But he's not industrious enough, eats the bread crumbs, and eventually dies. The rich man too...and when we get our privileged look at heaven, it is interesting to see how differently God's version of importance compares to ours.

Chinesa got a kick out of it.

And then we moved on to the widow's mite. (To be fair, I think we started here, but I'm too lazy to cut and paste so that the story flows in consecutive order. Not that anyone would have known had I not just written this...so imagine that this never happened...)

I love the widow's mite. "Mite" invokes an instant itchiness. She probably did have fleas or some other contagious infestation, and it's not impossible that the coins were dropped into the urn with a few extra jumping proteins. I like the image of this isty little grandmother/widow shuffling her way up to the offering plate and putting her two cents in, even as the men holding it recoil from her touch, her clothes, her smell.

Being that I told the story to a Brazilian, I tried to add local flavor to the non-essential parts. A nearly worthless coin down here would be the one centavo piece, which is the size of a small piece of play money, a delicate bronze colored disk that looks like it would make a better decorative pendant than a valid coin. Centavos are so worthless that people throw them away when they receive them with their change. I've only been to one store that ever gave me change when I paid R$5 for an item that cost R$4.99. You can't use them to pay for anything, or at least, nothing useful. And most every beggar I've seen leaves them lying where they fell. It's worthless. I'd like to think that it was this kind of coin that the widow put in...a coin that she found on the road and decided to give back to God.

How many times do I find something God's given me and grab it greedily without even stoppiing to ask if the gift was meant to stop in my hands or to go on to bless someone else? That's what I see this widow doing. She was certainly in the right socio-economic bracket to receieve the assistance that the church gave...the reason FOR the offering in the first place. She should have been taking out of the offering plate, not putting in. But instead of looking at the situation from the lens of a victim, she chose a different route. Honoring God as well as she could, she offers what she has: two little coins she found while walking around the city begging for bread. And she gives them to God and He's thrilled with her...

i wish I had her courage.

I'm not usually faith-full enough to trust God with "all I have to live on."

And that's all I'm saying tonight because my eyes are shutting...

Something happened to me today...

that I wanted to write about. And somehow, between coming home and playing Portuguese Scrabble (the kind where you can build up too) with Erica, I've forgotten what it was. Blast. Why does my mind need a personal secretary to keep everything straight?

That's why I'm going to be turning off my cellphone (well, almost. The ringer, anyway.) and unplugging my house phone and taking three days almost uninterruptedly to spend with God and myself. Retreat. Renewal. Life planning. I've recently been reading a fascinating book by Eugene Peterson that deals with King David's life (it's in Portuguese so I don't know what the original title was) and I plan on lugging it around with me to all the cool places in the city where I can get away...me, David, and God. Should be fun.

And I'm sure that somewhere in this weekend, I'll remember what it was that I wanted to post. And then I'll get back to you all...