Filling Up

Once Estrela took me to see a beautiful view of the city of Porto Alegre from Morro Santa Teresa, more commonly referred to as T.V. Hill because there's a television station there. 

But on the way there, she realized the gas tank was low so we stopped at the nearest station.

As the attendant filled up the tank, Estrela's friend told me that Brazilians absolutely require the service of gas station attendants.

He said that's how it always was. At some point, gas stations tried to make the move to self-serve, but people wouldn't have it. If they drove into a gas station and saw that they would have to get out of their car to fill up, they'd just drive away and find another one.

And so the gas stations said, "Fine, we'll give you gas station attendants. You'll just have to pay more."

The drivers weren't having any of that either. If they pulled up to a gas station and saw that the prices were raised, they'd drive off and wait until they could find a station with less inflated prices.

Gas stations had to give up. And that's how it is: regular prices and gas station attendants.

The service can be impressive too.

On our return trip from Santa Catarina, Samosa and I stopped at a gas station because the car was nearly on empty. A moça (young woman) filled up the tank, washed our windows and then when we were paying the bill inside the station, served us cafezinhos [espressos].

And she did this all with the most incredible kindness, to the extent that despite feeling awful (yup, I was coming down with pneumonia - woo hoo!) she transformed my mood and I wanted to hug her and everybody else at the gas station and wax poetic about how beautiful fellow human beings can be and how maybe there's hope for us after all. (I settled for saying thanks and waving goodbye with a big grin, guessing that perhaps a hug might have freaked her out a little).

I know, I know, that it was her job to be nice, but she was doing a wonderful job at it. I think she just fit into the category of person who just exudes love no matter what they're doing. I may be exaggerating, but I'm not sure - considering that this took place almost a month ago and I still remember. And so, I am grateful that I got the chance to cross paths with her. ( And yes, Samosa agreed that she was nice too).

Salsa-Dancing with Peruvians

Last weekend, due to A.'s organizing skills, a group of us took over a table at a Peruvian Salsa Party. We were an international table representing different regions of Brazil in addition to Uruguay, El Salvador, the United States and I do believe that Samosa was the first Pakistani ever to grace their halls.

There was yummy food (even for a vegetarian such as myself!). A little group singing in honor of International Women's Day. A performance of traditional Peruvian dancing.

Then a live band and a jam-packed dance floor (you know you're not in the US of A, when it takes a mere 30 seconds after the band starts playing for the dance floor to fill up).

I had to take it easy on the dancing (yes, yes, eventually I will stop talking about the after-effects of this lung-scarring pneumonia), but that was okay. I was just so happy that Samosa would get to meet many of the people in my life here in Porto Alegre, who are helping make the city a beautiful place:

A.'s father (who lives on the 3rd floor of her apartment complex) and his companion T. about to show us how elegantly salsa-dancing can be done. T. used some of her Reiki training on me a few days earlier and helped me stop being so frustrated about pneumonia and just relax a little bit.

I. & O., who live right around the corner, are super sweet, have great taste in music, and first introduced me to the delights of fried polenta. We even got the pleasure of watching them dancing a little samba together!

N. & A. who live in the happening neighborhood of Cidade Baixa and yes, are such sweet people. Of the rival Porto Alegre soccer teams, they're on the side of Inter.

N. went out of his way to find some soccer tickets for us, but the only game going on was being played by Grêmio (the other team). We asked if he'd like to come with us (this was before I got diagnosed with pneumonia and couldn't go). "I'm not allowed," N. said. "Not allowed?!" I asked. "No, no," he said, "I can't go to their game. It's not my beach." I'm translating literally because I just like that line, "Not my beach."

And then we have the lovely C. on the right, who I first met while enjoying some tasty Uruguayan pizza (who knew Uruguayans had a hold on the pizza market?). C.'s just got this wonderfully relaxing energy that's so great to be around. And the fabulous, ever-generous A. who (with Cipote) has opened her home to me and has helped me through so many varied situations that I will be forever grateful.

And here is brightly-shining Estrela who I got to meet last fall in Austin, Texas and her elegant mother. Estrela is awesome, has always been up for showing me around the city and gave Samosa and I an important lesson in how to make chimarrão. Estrela's mother reminds me how much I love the Spanish language and also happens to make a really delicious eggplant dish.

And here is the American and the Pakistani. You can note the strangeness of the American by the yellow balloons she has chosen to wear in her hair and her odd facial expression. The Pakistani is transcending language barriers ("You don't speak Portuguese?...How about Spanish?...Uh no, no Spanish either?...Um...well we can smile at each other then!) by just drinking in all the good vibes and energy of the party.

The Cultural Gardener

Before Samosa left town to go back to the States and after I'd followed doctor's orders and stayed inside for a week, we caught a bus downtown. I wanted to get out of the house and I wanted Samosa to see a little bit more of Porto Alegre.

First stop, the Mercado Público (Public Market), a grand yellow building chock full of merchants selling meat, fish, vegetables, fruits, materials for chimarrão, tea towels and religious items (Catholic saints and Orixás):

Second stop, the Casa de Cultura Mario Quintana. I thought this would be the perfect place to relax and enjoy a drink on the rooftop cafe. And it was as pretty as I remembered.

Later, well hydrated (in my case) and full of caffeine (in Samosa's), we started to explore this lovely building to see what other beautiful spots it might contain.

We peered out a window and saw a funky looking garden a few floors below.  I couldn't believe I'd missed this awesome spot during my last visit.

Turns out it was Jardim Lutzenberger, named after a gaúcho environmentalist from Porto Alegre, José Antonio Lutzenberger. The website says (in translation) that Lutzenberger was, "a lover and great defender of natural landscapes, he saw in gardening a singular tool for stimulation of the individual sensibility for environmental preservation."

This garden was created as an homage to Lutzenberger with the intent of "integrating the environment, art, culture, giving tribute to Lutzenberg and contributing to the formation of a culture more conscious and responsible for the great diversity that life gives to our land." It includes a wide variety of plants native to Porto Alegre and southern Brazil. And it's fun and creative!

Plants in bathtubs! How could you not fall in love with a garden such as this one?

And of course, because after all this was a visit to the Casa de Cultura Mario Quintana, I'll close with a line from one of his poems that was cited on the Jardim website:

"O segredo é não correr atrás das borboletas... é cuidar do Jardim para que elas venham até você."

"The secret is not to run after butterflies...it is to care for the Garden so that they come to you."  

Roadtrip to the Beach, Part II

Mmmm...fresh papaya



to be enjoyed as we looked out the window at this view:



A drive through the island to town



to enjoy fresh coconut juice



at Tenda Tio Ique. Where after a little persuasion, they let me use the phone because there was no place to buy calling cards and no pay phone. I gave the waitress R$2, which was more than enough. She warmed up a bit after that.



And, we left to return to Porto Alegre, we were a bit stymied by a cow in the road.



This picture looks like it's easy to cross. But for the first five minutes the cow was higher up the hill. The rope was taut across the road preventing us from driving ahead. We sat and laughed and wondered what to do. Was this an angry cow? Would she mind if we nudged her back to her side of the road? Eh, then she moved to greener pastures and driving across her rope became an easy task.

Then we greeted this lovely owl perched on a fence post nearby, potentially quite amused by our silliness.



And so went our first trip (but hopefully not our last!) to the beautiful state of Santa Catarina.

Dreaming & Waking

To-Go Garudasana
Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl

Last night I had a dream so vivid that it took me a while after waking up to realize that it hadn't actually happened.

I was taking a class with all the young boys that I work with at my internship. Our teacher was the director of the fabulous Street Yoga program. (Last fall, some friends and I had the wonderful experience of participating in a training he put on and got to meet and learn from this great guy).

In my dream he spoke Portuguese fluently and beautifully. The kids were responding well. And it took me about half the class to realize that he was teaching us yoga.

I'm not sure what it had seemed like before, just something else. Something good, no doubt, but just an experience like I'd never had before. It took a long time to realize that what I was doing was already familiar to me.

"This is crow pose," I thought as he brought us into the posture, "This is yoga! And the kids love it! I love it too!"

Afterwards, putting my shoes back on I was filled with excitement about the possibilities of working with these kids.

When I woke up, I felt elated.

Once I got over the fact that it was just a dream, it seemed the message was a strong one. Before Samosa left we were having lots of conversations about my internship. I was anxious and stressed out, primarily because I'd missed so much time being sick. I was worried that I couldn't make all this lost time up, or that I would have to make it up in ways that weren't fulfilling to me, just scrambling to get the hours I needed for my degree. And then what would be the point? I wanted it to mean something. What if it didn't? What would I do? And on and on and on. Samosa did the best he could to comfort me in my spiraling thoughts on the matter. But really since it was all just conjecture on my part, I had to wait until I got healthy again and my pneumonia was gone, before anything at all could be done.

Today was to be my first day back at the internship. Finally!

And it seemed to me -- as I got ready for work this morning -- that this dream was saying that although not everything I'm doing right now seems obvious to me (i.e. doing yoga and not realizing it's yoga), it's all good stuff and it's all beneficial in ways I may not yet be able to appreciate or understand. I just gotta go with it and enjoy the journey. I've got to remember what my professors always said and "Trust the process."

Trust the process. And try and enjoy it too.

It was a good day. 

Roadtrip to the Beach, Part I

The day after Samosa and I returned from Foz do Iguaçu, we rented a car and headed up the coast to the state of Santa Catarina. One of my internship supervisors has a pousada on the beach up there with her husband. She invited us to come stay in one of the apartments for a few days. How could we say no to that awesome and kind offer?

However.

Thinking that one can easily fly into town around midnight and then leave on a six-hour road-trip the next morning in a country that's not your own is perhaps pushing it. In retrospect, we both wonder if the trip wasn't the wisest of ideas.

We were pushing our luck. I was exhausted and getting sick, though I wouldn't admit it. Therefore I was acting with a single-minded stubbornness that made the various melodramas that we encountered while we were just trying to leave all the more difficult. Nothing in and of itself was insurmountable and much of it I had brought on myself. However, the entire day felt somewhat like wading through molasses.

Suffice it to say that we left the city limits at 4 PM in our little rental car, slightly later than our 10 AM anticipated departure time.

Luckily, the scenery quickly turned from cityscape to lush greenery. It was lovely. Our moods improved as we drove through this and drank in all the beauty.

We also got to observe a dump truck, weighed down just a tad too much by what it was carrying:

Ah, beautiful & green & hilly, oh my!

After dark, things got a little more treacherous. Several hundred kilometers of highway were under construction and we were forever weaving in and out of the highway and the frontage road, following lots and lots of signs and arrows.

We made it to our exit in good time. Then the adventure started. We crossed a bridge to an island-like location where the majority of roads were dirt and had no signs. We had directions but they weren't doing us any good. It was late. I'd accidentally forgotten my cell phone at work and had been unable to find it before leaving (another one of the earlier little melodramas). It was dark and late-ish. No one was around. We drove in frustrated circles, seeing lots of cute little pousadas, but not the one we needed to find.

In the end, we were saved by Samosa's iPhone. Seriously. I once had an angry person yell at me on the street in Austin, shouting that my iPhone wouldn't save me. But, in this situation, it did. Ha ha.

Before we'd left Porto Alegre, Samosa had meticulously documented each leg of our trip according to Google Maps by photographing each picture with his iPhone. Genius. Therefore we literally went through the pictures one by one, following the various curves of each road that we had to take to ensure that we were on track. I'll admit that I was useless in all of this. It was all Samosa's doing. The driving and the navigating. I was utterly confused and disoriented.

However, we thought things were going well, despite my lack of assistance, until we realized the road that we were following ended on the shore of the beach.

Ummm...

"Well," I offered, "My supervisor did say that the pousada was on the beach. I didn't realize it was a literal statement, but..."

We cautiously edged out on to the beach. The sand was firm. We saw a building in the distance we drove towards it.

"Maybe?" I said.

I got out of the car. Two guys were walking by with fishing gear and a fluffy dog.

"Um, excuse me?" I said timidly, "Um, are we in Praia do Luz?"

Have I mentioned before that I don't like asking strangers questions, especially when I'm lost and it's dark outside? I fit the stereotype of a typical guy when it comes to this matter. I know it's dumb and certainly something for me to work on. Samosa is much more rational and easily asks questions. However, he couldn't speak Portuguese, so I had to overcome my resistance and do all the talking.

"Yup, this is Praia do Luz," one of the guys said. The other stared. Phew. At least we were at the right beach.

"Do you know if this is Pousada do Luz?" I asked.

"I dunno," he said.
 
"Are there other buildings around here that could be?" I asked.

"I dunno," he said.

They walked on.

A young woman was supposed to meet us here but we were much later than we were supposed to be. I think we'd spent a good 45 minutes lost on the island's dirt roads too. I had no number to call her at and no phone anyway to do the calling.

Samosa stayed with the car and I wandered behind the building.

A group of men sat smoking cigarettes and playing cards at a small table. Light was diffuse. They stopped their conversation and looked up at me. I was reminded of some sort of painting. Or the opening scene of a movie. I just couldn't figure out what kind of movie that might be.

"Hi," I said, feeling foolish, "Umm...is this Pousada do Luz?"

They nodded.

Sweet! On the right track.

"So, uh, I'm friend's of Luiz and someone was going to meet us here. But we're late and I'm not sure where the girl we're meeting would be."

A man kindly offered to take me to the girl. We wandered around back to the front of the buildings. He went up some stairs and told a guy that some Argentinians were here to see him. Eventually that guy got us to the girl and she had the key to the place where we were going to stay. We had made it. It was dark. We were exhausted but excited to see what things might look like in the morning.

And when we woke up to birds chirping, this is what we saw. Yup, this is the road we came up the night before after driving down the beach.

And this is the magnificent beach. Praia do Luz (Beach of Light) is right.

"Oh my goodness," I thought, "It was all worth it!" Almost as though the utter gorgeousness of it all was quickly erasing all the tiredness and the mini melodramas from the day before.

Amazing.

We wandered bare feet on sticky sand down the shore, so very happy to be exactly where we were.

Airport Goodbye

Samosa left yesterday to fly home to the States. Initially I had planned on returning to my internship that afternoon. We discussed the idea that I'd put him in a taxi to the airport and then myself grab a bus to the office. It sounds a bit heartless I know. How could I not be there for as long as airport security would permit me? I felt a bit guilty about it and I also had a lot of pent-up I-have-missed-one-week-already-I-NEED-to-go-back-to-my-internship-NOW energy.

I called my supervisors that morning. I told them I was feeling better and was ready to start. They said, "That's nice. But, please, please, get some confirmation from a doctor that you indeed are better. Get some x-rays done. Make sure the pneumonia is gone.

Hmmm. They had a point. The locations I was working in and some of the places I'd be eventually visiting (i.e. kiddie prison) weren't exactly the healthiest spots to hang out in. If I was weak and still highly susceptible, chances were good I'd just get sick again.

So I said, "Ok, I'll do that." Of course, I didn't really know how I'd do that, but I'd deal with logistics later.

Now I had a free pass to take my boyfriend to the airport. I had been feeling kind of bad about not going with him. Here was a way to go and not feel about about not going to the internship either. Seeing as they weren't actually letting me come back to work yet.

Not that I'm any good at goodbyes. And neither is Samosa necessarily. Suffice it to say we were sad and made silly jokes to cover up some of it. And found them funnier than usual. I felt like crying. I remembered fellow classmate's post about a visit from her boyfriend where she's interning in Tanzania.

In some ways I think there are some existential questions that arise during moments like this: when you're utterly involved and immersed in something temporary but saying goodbye to someone permanent. They run the simple lines of what am I doing? Where am I supposed to be? I'm happy to be here in Brazil and excited to be at this internship. At the same time saying goodbye to my boyfriend at the airport makes me feel as though it's not real. Of course, I imagine that when I do return to Austin, Texas in a few months that it won't feel quite real at first either.

And so, I waited outside security while Samosa went through. The groovy but slightly dangerous-looking owl sculpture that he'd bought at the Brique da Redenção caused some consternation when it showed up in the scanner. I could see various hand gestures as the security guard and Samosa tried to communicate despite language barriers. I could see Samosa having to unpack the entire backpack and unwrap the owl and the security guards examining it. I wished I could be there to help out with translation. But in the end, they let him re-pack and go on his way.

I gave him a questioning thumb's up. He returned it. Phew. All okay. We waved goodbye and blew each other kisses and waved goodbye some more. Then he disappeared to find his gate. I didn't feel quite ready to hop on a bus back to my neighborhood, so I wandered up to the third floor of the airport. Turns out it was a mall, complete with cinema, cafes and restaurants, clothing stores, a post office and a number of banks. Wow. It was surreal, especially the cinema part. And amusing considering my prior musings. I figured it was a good time to buy stamps for the postcards we'd written.

The sweet lady in the post office chose the prettiest stamps for me, ones with colorful birds adorning them. They had no adhesive on the back though. And I watched as she patiently ripped out two stamps at a time along their perforated images. She brushed glue across them and carefully pasted them onto each of the seven postcards.

I thanked her and slowly made my way back down to the ground floor. I walked outside the airport and crossed a lane of cars picking up loved ones. I stood against a concrete column waiting for the T5 bus to arrive.

Last Day in the Iguaçu National Park

We had an evening flight back to Porto Alegre from Foz do Iguaçu and we were determined to make the most of the day. We packed our bags, checked out of the hotel, caught a bus to the Parque Nacional, stuffed our luggage in a locker and set out to enjoy the sunny day

The bus system, by the way, is easy to use. For those on a budget, I'd highly recommend it. R$2.20 per person versus a cab ride that's going to run upwards of R$30 to get from the downtown to the waterfalls. For those not on a budget, the cabbies are pretty nice guys and often willing to make deals instead of letting the meter run.

In the park, we opted for a package that began with a 9 kilometer bike ride through the rain forest.



The others on the tour were a local tour guide taking two neighbor friends to see the park. One of them had never ridden on a bike before. Much hilarity ensued. Usually too far behind us for us to actually see it. Though we could hear the laughing.

Our tour guide (who'd also been our tour guide on the boating trip we'd taken) would stop every once and a while to give these sweetly goofy guys a chance to catch up.



He also liked to point out the wildlife. Such as excitedly picking up this little dude and trying to take a picture with his camera phone at the same time.

Looks cute doesn't he? Or at least like some unassuming funky colored moss. Well, as we learned, do not mess with him. Just don't do it. Don't even let him brush against your skin. Because if you do you will have 48 hours to get to the hospital, or...you will die. No kidding.

Perhaps, it's not surprising that the rest of us weren't quite as eager to get close to the little dude.

Then, we saw another sight. A poor snake that had been run over (accidentally? not sure...) by a jeep. Our tour guide was really upset about this, especially at whoever was responsible, but determined that the poor guy was going to survive and shooed him back into the underbrush.



Then, I became a wuss.

I'm not sure how far we'd biked, but eventually the tour guide called the jeep to come pick up the other guys because they were having too much fun to keep up. We picked up our pace. The path got muddier. And a few kilometers in I was exhausted, breathing a bit heavy and dripping with sweat.

And I kept envisioning my bicycle tire slipping in the mud and bringing me down with it.  The jeep puttered behind us for a while and eventually I waved a white flag saying, "You know, what the heck, we might as well get a ride the rest of the way." I hated giving up, but the tour guide seemed totally fine with the change of plans.

Upon later reflection, there's a possibility that the origins of my pneumonia lay somewhere in this last day at the waterfalls. Truth be told outside of a tremendous amount of walking in Porto Alegre, I hadn't been doing much exercise in Brazil prior to this bike ride. And considering the deadly caterpillars, who knows what I could have unknowingly subjected myself too in a slightly weaker state. Hmmm...

We trucked along until we reached the lake. Then we climbed in a boat and glided along the water checking out the scenery including baby alligators and toucans.



Then, just to add a little more exercise in, we jumped into inflatable kayaks and bumbled through the last kilometer on our own. The three guys shared a kayak and kept doing 360s, water from their oars splashing everywhere. They made Samosa and myself appear positively full of athletic prowess even though we could barely kayak in a straight line. We all couldn't stop laughing. The tour guide and the boat driver were also pretty amused as they observed from a distance.



Later we caught the second to last Parque Nacional bus back to the entrance.



Even the gift shop was closed. Everything was quiet and sunlit. We retrieved our bags and changed into dry clothes for the flight. The beautiful red mud of the state was all over our legs and feet and shoes.



We waited for the local bus with park employees and got off at the airport stop.



Time to go home to Porto Alegre.