Vicios. I've got 'em, and so does Brazil.

Vicio. Addiction. It's such an ugly word. It means we have an uncontrollable desire for something. That something is a necessity in our lives. I have various additions, some of which are positive, some of which are negative. Among my positive additions, I am addicted to being physically active--walking, running, hiking, working out, etc. This addiction in the states led me to parking far far away from the door of Wal-Mart, constantly irritating my shopping companions, but think of all the BENEFITS of parking far away! Less chance your car will get hit, it's easier to find, and you get to WALK! I'm also addicted to being optimistic in about 99% of life's situations which doesn't always turn out good for me, but helps me get through all of the typical ups and downs of life. Finally, I'm addicted to music and books and shoes and purses and youtube makeup video tutorials (which I don't use, but I love to watch) and facebook.

Well, those are not all GOOD addictions, but they are at least not HARMFUL addictions.

Anyhow, I do have one seriously detrimental addiction. Coffee. This addiction is confounded by the fact that I live in one of the largest coffee exporting countries, Brazil, and I also live in a coffee producing region. AND EVEN MORE SO because I live one block from a coffee processing plant that roasts beans two times a day, morning and evening.

See See! That's Ji-Paraná! (and surrounding cities) all by itself!
 This map is from the Coffee Museum in Santos, São Paulo.

So, as you can assume, life for this coffee fanatic has not been easy. My intake has only skyrocketed since I have moved here. Fresh, locally grown and roasted coffee available on a daily basis? It's like heaven. The fact I don't even have a coffee maker hasn't been a problem at all, either. I've simply bought a plastic support for the coffee filters (that look just like the spot where you put them in a coffee pot) and strain boiling water right through it, just like the coffee pot does.) I simply haven't decided it was important enough to invest in (they run around 30-50 USD depending on the model) nor do I actually have the counter space to put one, so logically it would be more of a pain in the butt to have one.

The coffee filter fits right in and it drips perfectly into my 0.5L Thermos.

I drank coffee when I was stateside, but nothing like this. I started reflecting on how in all stores, banks, offices, schools, churches, basically any place that gathers people has a community coffee thermos for free (this is NOT the case in São Paulo, but is 100% the case in Ji-Paraná). If you are stopping by the bank to make a deposit, you can grab a small coffee, if you are going to your accountant's office, have a cup of coffee, if you are going to church, sure! Have a cup of coffee! If you are going to the doctor, there is always coffee available for clients. It's part of the culture! When I go to my sogros there is always a thermos ready with some cookies or biscuits in a jar on the table to welcome guests and this is pretty much the case in anyone's house that I have gone to. So maybe it's not all my fault.

Coffee has historically been the central export from Brazil to the rest of the world, especially in the early 1900s. There came a point during the 1930s that as a result of overproduction, the stock market crash and depression as well as the fact it coffee is a primary commodity, prices plummeted and being that the Brazilian economy during this time was almost solely based on coffee the government resolved to burn large quantities of the production to maintain the export value. Here is a chapter (in English) from a great book about the Economic Development of Brazil by Celso Furtado, one of the most respected Economic Historians of Brazil. I've read the whole thing in Portuguese thanks to my Economics professor at USP. There has also been a Canadian movie made about the topic that I would love to see.

The government during this time was a revolutionary military government turned democracy turned military dictatorship again led by Getulio Vargas, one of my favorite Brazilian politicians to study. He single-handedly transformed Brazil's economy, educational system and is the reason that Brazil has so much buracuracy. He was extremely nationalistic, the founder of Petrobras and the Ministry of Education and Culture (among like a million other government entities). He declared the New State (Estado Novo in Portuguese) and is the reason for the importance of Carnival and Samba in Brazil as he was attempting to create a "national Brazilian culture" for national unity, a pretty impossible task that he was actually very successful at. His legacy lives on in the name of the Getulio Vargas Foundation, one of the top research bodies in Brazil (that I would love to work for) that also has a variety of courses and social programs. I love to talk with my sogro about what school was like after his reforms, as he was going to school during the post-Novo Estado era and the nationalistic ideals were still the base of the national educational system. See, all military dictators aren't all bad....

Vargas was a HUNK.

What is the most interesting this is that as a result of the huge excess of coffee, it became a central part of Brazilian culture and today that feeling is still largely felt. Especially here in Ji-Paraná. My husband's cousin's wife's father (did you follow that?) was a huge coffee fazendeiro. I love hiking through his old coffee fields and hearing him talk about "the good old days of coffee" which was one of the main reasons he migrated to Rondonia. BY A HORSE DRAWN WAGON. He reaped the rewards of the coffee boom and managed to buy tons and TONS of land and today is extremely successful. He has turned large portions of his old coffee plantations into passion fruit plantations (equally delicious) and it's so interesting to talk about the changes, the challenges, the successes and the failures of living in a country based on primary commodity exports, being that I have studied this stuff for the last, ohh... 8 years.

In closing, it's not my fault I am addicted to coffee. It's Brazil's fault. If they didn't have such delicious coffee I wouldn't be drinking so much of it. Also, if it hadn't been an essential economic tool for survival, it wouldn't have become such an integral part of their culture. Brazil simply loves coffee and Becky loves that Brazil loves coffee. Case closed.

And now, I'll leave you with a beautiful song from the late 1940s sung by Frank Sinatra (re-recorded in the 1960s) about Coffee and Brazil. It's such a perfect song for any professor that is going to begin a lecture about the importance of coffee in Brazil!

"You can't get cherry soda 'cus they've got to sell their quota And the way things are I guess they never will They've got a zillion tons of coffee in Brazil" (see more lyrics here) 

Sing it, Frank.

I particularly like at the end when he says "Eiiii Pedro! Get the flashlight! I can not find the sugar!" in a really bad Brazilian-ish accent. Nothing like being politically correct.

Scams, Malandragem and Acceptance, OH MY.

Alright, so everyone knows that Brazil is sketchy. The government is sketchy, education is sketchy, even the weather is sketchy. (See this article from Veja from last week reprinted on this blog... my internet SUCKS so trying to actually find the article on Veja's website just will take too long.)

Well, all things in order, getting internet service is also sketchy.

So, where I live, there is, of course, only ONE telephone company and ONE DSL internet provider.( No cable internet, sorry.) There are some other options such as satellite and 3G but they are expensive and a pain in the butt to set up. Well, now I'm not so sure which is more of a pain in the butt.

The other night while discussing our friend's internet plan, the topic of a "provedor" came up. I thought this meant provider... like the company that provides your internet connection, but no, this is the company that you contract to provide you access to the internet that is provided by another company.

WHAT?

Yes. In Brazil you need to pay your internet fee (usually something like $60-$100 reais/month) to have a DSL line and then you have to contract ANOTHER company to PROVIDE YOU ACCESS to this internet service you ALREADY PAY FOR. This can range from R$3-R$10 depending on the company, if you see ads the whole time, if you want unlimited access to the videocams on Big Brother Brasil....)

I know, right?

I couldn't believe this. It is true malendragem. Welcome to Brazil.

Alright, well we found out that our only internet provider here in Ji-Paraná also has a contract with various companies of this sort and with your first year of internet service it is included, so no harm done, for now. Of course I didn't know why I chose one of the companies, it was the only company name I recognized, and hell, its free, and its required to have access to the internet. (I chose R7.)

Anyhow, after spending an hour on the phone setting up this whole internet deal (and now, to my surprise I finally have my CPF (or Brazilian-style Social Security number) memorized) I thought I had successfully completed this entire fiasco of setting up my internet. I had to get to one of my tutoring sessions and H had to go drink tereré, so we left our housekeeper in control of the house.

When we got home she said the phone was RINGING OFF THE HOOK while we were gone. She got so irritated she unplugged the phone and as soon as I plugged it back in, it rang again. I answered it and I was informed that it was a representative of the telephone company and that they needed to process the final payment of R$60, of course, for my convenience, it would be processed in three easy payments on my credit card, and I was informed that there were no possibilities for discounts or to put it on my telephone bill. I had to pay it NOW or I wouldn´t be able to access the internet.

Okay. Once I added up the following things:

1. I had been told that I had no more fees to pay when I hung up the phone earlier in the day with the phone company
2. She insisted that without this payment I would not be able to use my internet
3. The payment NEEDED to be on a credit card
4. She just seemed all around PUSHY
5. I've lived almost one year in Brazil

I decided to ask to speak to her manager. Immediately she said "Okay, well, if we need anything we will call you back, thanks!" and hung up. No more calls since. 

Of course I called back the telephone company, complained, told them that if this ever happens again we will cancel or internet service (which doesn't really scare anyone since there is no competition here...) but I was proud that I was able to handle the situation, in a foreign language, on the telephone. 

Success. Becky managed to avoid being scammed.

What made me sad, and had me upset all day, is that I imagined all of the people who fall victim to this scam. Especially since Brazil is going through a huge technology revolution and many people are getting internet in their homes for the first time, and most Brazilians, even though they live in a country full of scams, they simply don't know how to tell if it is a scam or not, and are terrified of questioning authority. (Thanks, Catholic Church.) Brazilians like to accept their suffering as a necessity and inevitable and I just don't agree with this. (Once again, thanks, Catholic Church.)

In order to illustrate this "acceptance," take a look at what happened in Rio last week. Three buildings fell down due to renovations that were being done WITHOUT A CONTRACTED ENGINEER TO OVERSEE THE RENOVATIONS and people died. See this article from Reuters in English.

Again, WHAT?

Everyone in my husbands family, while we watched the news, talked about how its just something that happens. How you're born with an expiration date and there's nothing you can do about it. That people die because it was time. I just can't accept that it was the "time" for all of those people. There was a man on the news talking about how he was on MSN with his wife who was taking a computer class in the building at the time the buildings fell. He said that she just stopped responding. I have a hard time believing that it was "her time". The people in charge of the renovations were CARELESS and SELF-CONCERNED and didn't follow the correct protocols. If there is anything that we need to learn from this catastrophe, it is not that "it was their time" but that there needs to be efficient oversight, less bureaucracy and less malandragem. Most of the people who died in this tragedy were people who were trying to make a better life for themselves. They were taking computer or English classes AT NIGHT, meaning, they already have jobs during the day and were taking time off of being with their families and friends for a better future. How is it that it was "their time." Lives have been forever altered because of the ignorance of the person who gave the "go ahead" on the construction that ended in what looked like 9/11.

And finally, I was watching what appeared to be an interesting debate about mandatory voting on the Catholic TV station that broadcasts here. It is a national station, I believe, since the production was really well done. Anyhow, during the debate one of the participants expressed how he believed that Christians should avoid at all costs getting involved in Politics because they will be tempted by evil and sin.

Once again, my reaction was WHAT?

In the words of one of my wisest advisers in college, in order to make something better, you have to get your hands dirty and get inside. That is how you make change.

Dr. G, I still agree, and it is one of the reasons that when I start to become disillusioned with all of the madness here in Brazil, I also get re-energized. I'm here to start those conversations, to inspire my students to read the paper, to CRITICIZE AUTHORITY and to ANALYZE INFORMATION. Not to just accept the status quo. I don't think all tragedies happen because "it was time" but I think in many cases it is an opportunity for us to see what is really happening and to make the changes necessary so they STOP HAPPENING. One of my fellow bloggers, and fellow American-Turned-Rondoniense at Titia Amor is the best example of this. She sees a dog suffering in the street and schedules meetings with the school director and local veterinarian to put together a plan to end animal suffering in her small town. She gets on the radio and talks about it and makes entire lesson plans about the subject for her students (as well as tons of other things. See an interesting post about what she's up to here.). That is exactly what Dr. G was talking about, and it is what I am trying to do, as well.

In closing of this blog post, I hate scams. I hate malandragem. These are two things that kill me about Brazil. But what I hate more, is acceptance of the above. It's just not right. Any religion or society that teaches acceptance of these societal ills needs to be reevaluated and updated for the times. Change is coming, I just hope it comes sooner than later.

(PS-I don't mean to denounce Catholicism or Christianity in this article, what I am upset about is the culture that came along with it that has plagued Latin America since colonialization. The form of the religion that was taught here by early Spanish and Portuguese was that it is necessary to suffer and you need to smile and don't ask questions. Unfortunately, it still thrives throughout the entire region.)

Dogs, Rain, Fish and Cows... what else!?

So a lot has happened since my last update... first, I have landed a new and exciting teaching position for next year (I hope to continue at the current school I am at as well, meaning I am going to be working 12 hour days, but with every other weekend off, so hopefully I don't die.) I had this great idea when I was in high school about going to college... then after I finished that, I decided to continue on to graduate school. The result? I'm loaded down in debt and I've got to 1) figure out a way to pay it off ASAP so Humberto and I can really get serious about our "adult" life and 2) find a way to do it that is ENJOYABLE. I think all will be well :)

Also, we have adopted another bundle of joy into our home. His name is Ice. (When said in Portuguese it turns into Icey... and everyone goes HAHAH! That means GELO (ice in Portuguese..) RIGHT?! Even our vet was amused. You'll see why whey you see his photo.

Ice, in the flesh. A MinPin Mutt with a mean streak.

He's all black with a little white on his chest and little dots on his feet like he stepped in a puddle of white paint. In this photo we were at the café on the Avenida... he's that kind of dog. Of course I bought him a bottle of water and had his little bowl with me so he wouldn't get dehydrated.

The adoption was a big debate because our previous dog passed away from Distemper... a terrible horrible no good very bad dog disease that is common here in Ji-Paraná, mainly because most people don't vaccinate their dogs and we weren't sure if the disease was out of our home yet. After I put Zara down, I bleached the house, top to bottom, washed all our sheets in bleach water, everything I could possibly do because not only did I want another dog... we have lots of friends with dogs and the last thing I wanted was for them to catch this horrible disease. I have to say I think it is probably the worst disease to watch a dog suffer from, and most pet websites agree with me on that one. They just slowly deteriorate, then magically get better, then from one minute to the next they loose complete sense of where they are, who their owner is, become paranoid, then lose control of their own bodily movements. It tore my heart into pieces and I would never, ever, wish that on another dog owner. After talking with a variety of vets and consulting many websites, I just grew more frustrated. Some sites said within minutes the virus is dead, others said it took years for the virus to die. After doing some hard thinking, we decided at least a month of a dog-less house, with intense bleaching and keeping everything as dry as possible (similar to HIV, it doesn't survive well in hot and dry environments and since our temp here is always around 90F, I made the bet we were in the clear.)

Miss Zara

We've also entered into the rainy season. I have been having a lot of interesting conversations with the people who were some of the first settlers here in Ji-Paraná about how much the environment and weather patterns have changed in only 30 years. The rainy season used to be a continuous rain for 6 months. Now it's just a storm, or a drizzle at most, the lasts about an hour, and it doesn't hit every day. The water tables are all low... the rivers are all low... and everyone knows why. Deforestation. (Vovó, click on the link! You'll find it very interesting!)

From: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/

Back in the 50s until about the 80s and even until the early 90s, the government actually HELPED people to cut down the forest here for "development". Free land, incentivising clearcutting and highway development. The famous Highway 364 is the highway where my inlaw's farm is. It's true that you have to take down some trees to "develop" but at the same time Brazil did a horrible thing to itself... it stripped away a lot of its natural resources and now the climate is changing at rates that are being witnessed from year to year.  The new government restrictions (you must maintain 30% of your farmland forested and you can't burn anymore) aren't exactly abided by all of the time and enforcement is few and far between. However, people do their best to abide by these regulations because the penalties are heavy and potentially will cause the farmer or fazendeiro to lose their entire investment because of the violation.

However, yesterday it did rain. And it rained during my lunch break. Humberto took me to a wonderful restaurant under the big bridge that joins the two parts of the city together on the bank of the Machado River. 

The restaurant had the freshest fresh fish I have ever tasted in my life... I ordered mine fried with a creamed corn sauce... it was incredible (unfortunately I forgot to take a picture...) and here are some pictures of the restaurant... and of us!

Me and the love of my life... Well, part of me anyways.

And finally, later that day, while at a red light, I looked out my window and I had a bunch of eyes staring at me... let's see if you can see what was staring at me!

Mooooooooo! (or in Portuguese, MAUUUUUU)

Until next time! Beijos para todos!

Applications currently being accepted for the position of Hero

So today in class I started a discussion about Heros. You know, people who do incredible things. At first one of my students explained there are no such things as heros. That's just in the movies, she said. However, as the conversation moved towards defining hero as a person who has been able to make big changes in the world and help a lot of people.

Somewhere along the line Teachers as heros was being discussed and then of course the topic of how teachers are undervalued in Brazil. (Reminder: in applying for jobs I was actually offered the incredible salary of R$5.00/hour to teach English to small children 5-10 years old in a private school. Double reminder: I have a Master's degree.) This then turned to the conversation about how large amounts of money are lost between the federal government and the schools due to corruption, which lead to the sharing of a recent news story that I was still unaware of.

One third of the Federal State Representatives, or deputados, in Rondonia were imprisoned yesterday, along with about 30 other government officials on corruption charges. What makes this story even more depressing is that they were stealing money from the STATE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH! Also, they weren't just stealing fractions of pennies like they tried to do in the movie Office Space (even that didn't go over as planned) they were stealing huge sums of money. It is estimated that the total that was funneled away from providing GOVERNMENT HEALTH CARE SERVICES is more than R$120 million (about US$70 million).

This all reminds me of how last week I went to the health clinic, posto de saúde, with a friend of mine who had stepped on a nail to get a tetanus vaccine. After waiting about an hour, she was told that she had to go to the Municipal Hospital (for a free shot) or stop by a pharmacy to pay for one, about R$50 since they were out. We went to the hospital, waited another hour only to find out that their normal supply was also out. Luckily since my husband ran into a friend of his (who is in charge of stocking the medications at the hospital... and obviously not on top of his job) he liberated the use of the emergency tetanus shot for my friend. Well, after spending about a half hour LOOKING for said emergency tetanus shot it was announced that the emergency tetanus shot was also out of stock. So, of course, we had to go to a pharmacy for her to get the shot, then of course since it was the day before a holiday, the only certified person to administer the tetanus shot was on vacation, so we decided to just try the posto de saúde in the small town where we were going to spend our holiday and hope they had a shot on hand. I wonder if these vaccinations were overlooked due to the missing R$120 million?

Anyhow, after discussing this story, we were stuck in the circle of problems that faces Brazil that looked like the following. (maybe I should have used Word instead of Paint... anyways...)

The education system is bad due to corruption (funneling of funds to personal accounts, for example) and the government continues to be corrupt because there is a lack of oversight by the people. The people remain uneducated on how to vote because 1) they are poor and are more worried about having rice and beans tomorrow than the new credit card interest policies, 2) because of the poor education system that limits individual productivity and lastly 2) because of corrupt political and economic system that is historically based on patronage and clientism.

A law student in my class summed it up when she said, "The masses just aren't educated enough to know how to find out what rights they have and even less educated to know how to use those rights." She has a point. 

There are countless articles on how "poverty" has dropped drastically since the insane expansion of programs like Bolsa Familia, the topic of my Master's thesis and this article from the New York Times and this study by the IFPRI, but I still don't buy it. These types of programs, although they help to resolve immediate poverty (read: lack of cash to buy food) they have been overtly used as a pawn in the political sphere, which is the topic of this study written by two different research institutes in Brazil, one of which is the IBGE, the government statistics organization. However, with poverty such a pressing issue in every corner of Brazil (both rural and urban) what is the answer? If effective educational reform is made difficult by corrupt governors and the government assistance programs tend to just help keep people buoying between starvation and just getting by, what is the caminho certo to take? My students said they don't know what the answer is because every time corrupt officials are kicked out, such as what happened this week in Rondonia, just more will come and fill the vacancies. My soon-to-be-lawyer student says THIS is where education fails. The people aren't educated enough to know who to vote for... and are attracted by fancy Bolsa this Bolsa that programs. This is confounded by the fact that the vote is mandatory by ALL citizens in Brazil (and abroad for that matter). (Read: Vote-Buying) This argument of hers, I solidly agree with.

Is this new generation going to be the generation of change? Are these teens capable of changing a legacy of patronage, corruption and abuse of power? Or will they fall victim to the same trappings of political power? They are at least making some noise (see BBC article).

I think Brazil needs a hero. And this time, superpowers are required to apply.