Three hours of firefights are enough to turn even the most solid person into a nervous eater. I've gone through half of my block of precious cheddar cheese (bought just today and much more expensive now with the exchange rate changes) and am slowly eating through a bag of Christmas cashews and my Peruvian marshmallows. I don't have a television and the power is off in Manguinhos, so there's no real connection to the outside world, though I'm going to check the Globo website right now to see what the status is...but I was a music major in college. I hear the different tones of those explosions and those aren't just handguns, semi-automatics and machine guns that are going off out there. Grenades, the police tank's gun, possibly shoulder-propelled rockets? Those are some BIG sounds. And under them all, this absurd, cloying music. For at least as long as the firefight, someone has been playing an instrumental cd of Christmas and children's songs non-stop. Tinkly, cheap, Sunday School classroom xylophone instrumental music. Two hours of The Twelve Days of Christmas. Enough to drive me nearly mad.
As if it wasn't bad enough to hear the sounds of intergalactic warfare happening next to my supermarket. But that is Rio for you. Paradox. Just today, at another supermarket, as I was checking out, an elderly couple chose a cart and waltzed down the aisles to do a bit of early afternoon shopping. In their BATH ROBES. With fanny packs over their sashes. I guess that's what you do after swimming class. Just do a bit of nearly-nude shopping...
Oh, how I am missing the peace and quiet of that island! What a way to be welcomed back to Rio.
1 comment:
I find it sad that your firefight didn't even make our US news--too common, I guess.
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