Without Internet to the 3rd

Sorry readers. I have moved for the third time this year and am without internet. It's always a radical experience in Bahia trying to convince technical people to show up and do their technical thing. But have no fear, the saga will continue shortly.

A Shout Out

Best compliment a blogger can receive. This one from my dad:

"I take a certain joy in reading your blog in that I can live adventures vicariously through my spawn. Keep it up."

Weird to think that you live on in the genetics of your kids. That their adventures are your adventures, and so forth into infinity.

Just wanted to give a shout out to my friends and family, and those celebrating hot turkeys and cold pumpkin pies. Thanksgiving doesn't exist here, and I must savor its delights through the fragile whisps of mist and memory.

Saudades for all of voces.

Flip, Flop, Forward

One step and you will see, the brilliance of a born again sun.

One measure and you will know, the flutter of life in branch and tepid sky.

Bustle fills the emptiness of winter past.

Water melts, deluge runs.

Spring breaths and fills us anew.

* * *

I have finally made a decision. I have decided to leave Vila Brandão. This as you may note comes on the heel of a decision to stay, immediately following a prior decision to leave, which directly trails a decision to stay put and stick it out. Clearly I am a divided person—a flip-flopper with uneven intentions, an indecisive anthropologist with one foot in the favela and another fleeing the other way.

In any battle of indecision, if one thinks long and hard enough, there comes a point of clarity. I reached that point last night. You see, Vila Brandão can best be described as a really hot woman [ahem…excuse the analogy]. She is beautiful, mystifying, with full lips and a purrrrtyyy smile. When one first meets her, descending the favela steps with a view of the sea, it is instant enchantment. The halo effect kicks in, dopamine rushes to the brain, and one swoons with pleasure and attraction.

But…

Like most really attractive women, Vila B is FULL of issues. You know the one, the girl everyone wants to be or to have, so hot that everything is handed to her, on a power trip, likes to toy with men, abused, misused, unhappy. Vila B is the kind of girl that people warn you to stay away from, so beautiful and lovely to own, but that will surely fuck up your life if you decide to get involved.

While incredibly enchanting, Vila B will take you down, pull you in a spit you out. Vila B is ignorance, a mystifyingly low level of education. Vila B is kids with weak family ties, dad’s who ignore their children, who sit around all day enjoying their sun and getting fucked up on cachaça, weed, or whatever else is around. Vila B is neighbors fighting neighbors, is people flashing their weaponry for the little space they have. Vila B is exploitation, is learning to take when not offered, of leading a life lax in discipline, o malandro, the life of the rogue.

This is not everyone of course, there are good people here too, but the problem is they do not run the show. The thieves and drug dealers do, and everyone suffers because of it.

When I decided to leave Vila Brandão is when I realized that I am not going to change things. Part of me wants to be the savior anthropologist, to pull strings and watch the big boys go down, to save the kids from this band of thieves. But the truth is, I cannot change the hot girl. The hot girl has to change herself. As soon as the big daddies disappear, another generation of rogues will fly forth. In the void of education, new daddies will come to power, ready to steal, intimidate, and mark their territory for themselves.

So, as much as it would make a great book, I am gone. I prefer to skip the crusade and simplify my life. My water bill arrived yesterday—1300 reis. My neighbors continue to put up gatos, to steal my electricity, to laugh at me when I tell them to step up, pay their bills, and be a man. I realize that if I invest my time and money in this house, this space that I love so much born from my sweat, things aren’t going to get any better. I can’t change the people and am a fool to try. If I have a beautiful house in a shit can, it will still smell like shit.

So there it is. It has been a hard one to make, but I’m gone.

I have found a tiny little apartment in Vila Matos my old neighborhood. I am going back to my old life there. Vila Matos is a loud bustling sort of place, that never stops moving. My new place is over a bar, it will be difficult to sleep, but at least I can rest assured that my stuff is safe, that I’m not being robbed, that I have friends who aren’t ready to exploit me. After all, she may not be the prettiest of ladies, but at least she has a good heart. That my friends makes all the difference.

2 Things

Number 1: Leo decediu ficar na favela, lutando pela casa dele. I tell you later.

Number 2: Lest we not forget, Brazil can be chunky frosted flakes of fun. I hate to sound so negative at times, because we do have ourselves a good time here. Especially at Praia do Flamingo on the weekends.

My Routine

Monday:

7-8:30 – Wake up. Drink Vitamina. Eat eggs. Watch Brazil news and marvel at the stories about violence, drug abuse, police shooting people, and traffic accidents.

8:30-9 – Fight traffic with moto. Listen to heavy metal at low volume to get pumped up. Glare at people who try to hit me with their cars. Make lots of noise with my muffler.

9-6 – Play corporate monkey. Sell things. Organize things. Write things. Wish I didn’t have a 80 year old back in a 27 year old body. Pump myself full of pain killers and muscle relaxants. Stare out window and wonder what life would be like if I had a boat and was sailing across sea. Ignore tired brain.

6:30 – 8 - Drive to Pituba. Park moto and watch for muggers. Drink coconut and eat Doritos. Give English class.

9 – Arrive in favela. Stare at people who want to rob me. Play friendly with people I want to kill. Walk through dark alley full of trash. Unlock six locks, enter home. Heat up beans and rice. Turn on t.v. and space out.

10-11- Listen to Garrison Keeler on a Praire Home Companion talk about a life far away from my own. Relax. Fall asleep.

Tuesday: Go to work. Go to gym. Stay up and work on my English lessons. Fall to sleep.

Wednesday: Go to work. Give English class after work. Go home. Eat beans and rice. Fall asleep.

Thursday: Go to work. Go to gym. Go to sleep.

Friday: Yeah! Go to work. Get out from work, drive to Vila Matos. See poor people that are nice and don’t want to rob me. Drink beer with bar friends. Drink beer until I can get a haircut. Pay 4 reis for a haircut and leave……………..interrupting post here. Just went up the hill to pick up V. Talked about how I was tired of the Vila as I descended. Told her that I was ready go off. Started passing 10 or 12 teenagers sitting on the hill. One started calling me gringo to antagonize me. I was not in the mood. I turned around and confronted him, asking if he had something to say to me. I turned around and all the little shits starting chanting gringo! I turned around and told them to go fuck themselves. Descended the hill with V pulling my arm.

Thinking now that I want out. Thinking I wish I could wipe these ignorant fucks from the face of the earth. Thinking I am over reacting and that I’m not a very good anthropologist. Thinking, jesus, it’s time I found a new apartment.

Saturday: Whatever

Sunday: Whatever

Poverty of Mind

When it comes to my decision to stay in the Vila, I remain on the fence. On the one
hand I love my house, love how I'm not stuck in a hole in the wall apartment, and truly appreciate the fact that I'm not paying rent. Falling asleep to the sound of the waves is magical. Watching the sun tip over the island every night is almost painful in its beauty.
But what the Vila makes up for in charm it lacks in sophistication. A great majority of the people here in the Vila, especially the roaming degenerate band of alpha males, are poor. Good, ok, just about everyone is poor in Brazil. When I speak of poverty in this context, it has less to do with the pocket and more to do with the mind. Poorness of mind is the world’s true poverty and it exists in all economic circles. One universal example of this is the “don’t shit where you eat principle”. Across the board, I find that those who are poor of mind tend to pollute their own living space. In the Vila people throw trash all over the ground, allow their dogs to shit where they like, and generally lack respect for their home. Not to say this instinct is confined to the favela, poverty of mind is widespread among corporate princes, those so called masters of the universe who think they can produce, produce, produce and shit all over everything.

But I digress. I am seriously considering moving away from my home, despite the countless man hours I have put into making this place livable. Unfortunately, the root cause of the problem is the people, and they aren’t going away. I continue to have neighbors that try and exploit me. If you remember the electricity situation awhile back, where my neighbor stole the electricity from my house, and then racked up hundreds of reis in bill/late charges. Well it only seems to get worse. After much fighting, I agreed to share the electricity bill with this lacky, with me taking up the brunt of the charges and he paying the late fees. This option was more than fair, considering the late charges were HIS problem, and I was doing him a great service by helping him to pay and clear his credit-misaligned name. Well the first bill has come and he still hasn’t paid, not after repeated promises to give me the money. To make matters worse, the judge in my citizenship case just denied my rent statements, demanding that I show him an energy bill in my name to prove my residence in Brazil. That means I have to put this huge debt into my name, and lose the power position that I am currently in with this bum.

So yes, I remain torn. The good days are good but the bad days are bad. The owner of the house keeps trying to convince me to stay, naturally as it is in her best interest. Attached below are some old pictures that she sent to me of her life here back in the day. I recognize the beauty of this adventure, but unlike her, I continue to live in the real world of drug use, occasional violence, and people eying my things. Just last week, another gringo’s house was broken into. I spend most of my time outside the neighborhood working, and fear every night that I will come home to a plundered home.

So yes, oh vida mais ou menos, this whole favela life is not without its complications. I’m still not sure what I’m going to do.

I'm a bad blogger.

Well, there's no point in avoiding it so here goes.
I'm sorry. No really, I am. I have become a horrible blogger.
There is something about sitting in front of a computer at
work for 8-9 hours a day that just kills my blogging instinct.
When I get home from cyber space world, that last thing I
feel like doing is hopping on my computer. And because of this my
readership suffers. Moreover, my life suffers, because
when somethingcool happens, it gets sucked away into
that unreliable vortex called memory.

In an effort to excuse the inexcusable, let me briefly present:

The top 10 reasons why I am a bad blogger:

1. Because I have been without internet for two whole days,
and uh, and uh, and uh no internet means no blog.

2. Because I have been paying more attention to the
election than myself.

3. Because blogging requires work. Work is something
I do all the time now. When one works, one learns to
appreciate the time when one is not actually working,
and one is much less inclined to work when it's non work time.

4. Because I only have one free day a week to do what I
want, and I spend that day with my girlfriend.

5. Because girlfriends have boobies, and laptops do not.

6. Because things with boobies are way more fun than
things without boobies.

7. Because boobies.

8. Because I am spending way too much time on
other people's blogs. Rio gringa is putting me to shame,
because she blogs way more than I do and makes me look non-committal.

9. Because getting a tan is way cooler then being all pasty.

10. Because i need to make money and be productive human
being, and because the laundry needs washing, and
because my fridge is empty, and because i want
a six pack, and because i told you so, and because
Barack Obama for president, and because your mom,
and because this there and that times 2.

Coco-what? Errrr II

I have a job!

Yes ladies and gentlemen it has happened. Leo has gone corporate.

In one weeks time my lifestyle here
in Brazil has done a 180. After months
of struggling as a unemployed, twiddling my thumbs with too much time on my
hands, I have found a job. And not just any job, but a real live 9-5. Before I left the States I did an internship for an agency specializing in Cultural Heritage Tourism. I considered the field to be the perfect melding of my talents: (1) works good with people (2) enjoys foreign places and exotic travel (3) detail oriented (4) competitive (5) and for-profit. As much as I love the academic life, I became disenchanted with the non-profit lifestyle (i.e. work hard, make little), and was determined to find a career that would reward me for my labor.

About a week ago, an internship and a manager position was posted online for internet based Travel Company that specializes in custom built tours to South America. After doing a bit of research, I learned that the company was small, but quite impressive in its list of services (real estate solutions, travel solutions, web design, and translation). Essentially, it was a one stop shop for clients interested in real estate investment, travel, translation and web design in Latin America.

Fast forward a couple of interviews, and Leo had himself a contract. The company posted a manager position that required at least 8 years experience in tourism, which naturally I didn’t have, but I was determined to sell my skills and bid high. Having done the “intern” thing, I told them that I was ready for a bigger challenge and they agreed. For the next three months I’m on salary as an operations manager and sales tech. If I survive the next three months of work, then I become manager of the travel division, with around 8 employees under my wing.

The work itself is…..hmmm….odd. So different than my past experience. Essentially, I sit at a computer all day long. Because the company is small, our team has a thousand responsibilities. In an eight hour day, I end up playing the role of accountant, administrator, customer service guru, sales tech, and researcher. As if the multiple role thing wasn’t enough of a challenge, I have to do a great deal of my work in Portuguese, which is exceedingly difficult by the end of the day. When I get home my brain is fried.

So, yeah my life has changed. Who knows if it will last, but for now at least I have a steady income. I can return to my routine of going to the gym, of paying for my martial arts, of not freaking out when I buy groceries. I’m really interested in this tourism thing, and hope to continue digging myself into the industry while I complete my masters. I’m still going to have to live sparsely, as Brazilian salaries are MUCH MUCH less than a American salaries, but at least something….anything….is coming in.

Check out the links on the sidebar for my plug.

Away

I must admit that deep down I am a country boy. I grew up in Michigan, in a back woods landscape of snow and leaves. I grew up appreciating nature for its mystical qualities, for its ability to transfer the mundane into something wholly mysterious. For me, the forest was a place where I could exercise my imagination, unreservedly, where I could live out my own quests, adventures, and dreams.

For the first time in my life, I find myself living in the heart of a large city, in the center of hustle and traffic and stress. At times, the city becomes too much for me, the weight of its human drama, and I simply have to get away.

On just this very whim, Vivi and I took off this weekend, escaping to the island of Itaparica on the other side of the Bay. Our first night was spent in Mar Grande, where we roamed around the midnight streets, eating, drinking, and mingling with the holiday crowd. The next morning, we took off for ‘Sitio Alma Tropical’, a beautiful beachside estate owned by my friend Betulia. The place was just what we needed, a tropical paradise filled with animals, and greenery, and natural wonder. For any of you visiting Bahia, I heartily recommend a stay at one of their beach side bungalows, as it’s a wonderful place to rest up and rejuvenate the soul.

Click here: Sitio Alma Tropical

Ready to go. On the ferry boat ride.

The other side of Salvador.

Professora saluting.

Sitio Alma Tropical. Well, one beautiful corner anyway.

Full of fish.

And coconuts!

Smile Vivi.

We're in the jungle baby!


Keep gate closed.

Mist and shadows.

And here we go. Back accross the bay.

Hard Realities

So you want the truth do you? Sit down, have a seat.

Today we are going to address the question of the itinerant gringo. Why is it that foreigners from the US and Europe, who come to Brazil to try and make a life, end up going home?

Well, the answer is simple. Money and quality of life.

Here in Brazil, money is hard to come by. This is because:

The great majority of the population works for a measly $200 USD a month. The middle class exists, but only in times of plenty. When inflation takes off, the middle class fall back into poverty. In terms of Social-Darwinism and capitalism, a small bourgeoisie population and a massive army of poor does not exactly make for a strong economy.

This is because:

Less people with money = less consumption.

Less consumption = higher prices.

Higher prices = Low quality of life.

For the passing tourist, Brazil seems like a paradise. The climate is warm, the palm trees are plenty, the women exotic. With a pocket stuffed full of euros or dollars, the gringo feels rich and in control. Then, gringo experiences the formula:

1. Gringo falls in love with a local.
2. Gringo goes back to his boring rat-race existence in the real world, but has little success after tasting a little slice of paradise.
3. Gringo because enamored with his little slice of paradise, and in a fit of inspiration decides to throw away is cubicle existence to live in Brazil.

Whoo. Awesome. Great.

Fast forward six months.

Gringo sinks his teeth into reality. Gringo experiences his/her first bout as a native instead of the tourist. Gringo realizes that his income doesn’t get him very far. Gringo realizes that for the first time in life, he is poor. Gringo realizes that it is nearly impossible to get a job. Gringo realizes that the only people with money are working professionals (i.e. lawyers, doctors, engineers) who struggled up the professional ladder, or got into good schools because their families are rich. Gringo realizes that he is not rich, nor getting into a good school.

Gringo teaches English until he realizes that.

He/She is not making enough money to travel.

He /She is not making enough money to live in a safe and secure place.

He/She is not making enough money to enjoy hobbies, or see movies, or dine out (at least not with the same frequency as back home).

Gringo hits the wall, packs up, and moves home.

More truths:

--Most gringos that come to live comfortably in Brazil are retired (i.e. earned their money elsewhere) or work for international companies.
--Most gringos that I know live here illegally, marginally, and earn a very small living.

Not to say that these formulas apply to me, this is just what I continue to see.

Oh, gringoes. Don't say that I didn't warn you.

A little 'City of God'

I'm in my bedroom. Two minutes ago, I snapped these photos of the military police sniffing around my bairro.





I'm not going to lie. This shit makes me nervous. The police force in Salvador are under payed and over armed. When there is trouble in paradise, bullets fly. I so feel like 'Rocket' in the City of God, snapping pictures of the police from around the corner. Who knows, maybe it will boost my career in journalism. Maybe it will help me find a job.

I have a bed!

Slowly, day by day, my house is turning into a home. After sleeping on the floor and on thin mattresses for the last eight months, I finally decided to take the plunge and buy a real bed. It's amazing how luxurious such a simple thing feels after denying yourself the pleasure. No more soar hips and unnecessary back aches. Step by step, this cub is moving up in the world.

Love is the Death of Ego

When we come into this world, we come in fragile. We need people to care for us, to nurture us, to give us life. Before long, as we feel pain both real and imagined, both physical and emotional, we start to build walls. The savagery that is life, which takes without regret, begins to dig underneath our skin, and in response we toughen our whole exterior. This shell is our selfish gene, our disconnect from the world, our ego. The stronger our ego becomes, the less we ultimately feel.

I experienced a revelation this weekend, born of a horror I dare not forget. I experienced a moment where I thought I was going to die. Emergency rooms, blackness, thinness, demons, I saw the shell that is in me, this armor built black, made up of all my fears. And in that moment I saw my ego for what it truly was, and therein lay the key.

Love is the death of ego.

Love is the death of ego.

Love is the blessing beneath the shell. Love is inter-connectivity.
Love is light perfected. Without the other, there is no love. Without
the offer, no one could receive. To get you must give, and by giving you will obtain.

In this life, imperfect as it may be, there is nothing more worthy than to love and be loved.

The House and Things

Ok, I know. I need better material. It's just a trifle anyway.