Adventures of a Gringa

Welcome to Adventures of a Gringa! I'm a 24 year-old New Yorker who recently returned home after living in Brazil for about two years. To find out more about me and how I wound up in Brazil, see here. To find out how to contact me, see here. I like to make Top Ten lists; you find them under the Pages column on the right. And feel free to sign the guestbook! You can also find me on Facebook, Orkut, and Twitter.  Please make sure to read about my cause. 

Saudades

A verdade é que não estou com muitas saudades do Brasil, pelo menos no sentido que não estou com vontade de voltar agora, de estar lá agora. Mas estou com muita saudade das lembranças que tenho do meu tempo lá. Sempre quando penso em uma experiência boa que tive, ou até momentos de importância nenhuma, tipo de estar lendo na cama ou sair para comprar suco, fico com saudades desse momento. Tem sentido sentir saudades de uma recordação?

Todo o mundo sempre me pergunta, "Mas você não esta sentindo falta do Rio? Do Brasil?" Ficam decepcionados quando eu respondo que não. A única vez que fiquei emocionada foi em setembro, quando o Eliseu me mandou um vídeo desses, propaganda para as Olimpíadas com essas imagens maravilhosas das montanhas e o mar, que de repente começei a chorar.

Quando fui embora do Rio, queria muito voltar para casa. Apesar do que as coisas aqui são difíceis, mesmo assim fico muito feliz de estar aqui. Estou contente de estar com meus amigos e a minha família e de ter conseguido um trabalho muito bom, pelo menos por enquanto. Estou muito feliz de ver o Eliseu finalmente ganhando um salário digno, muito mais do que qualquer trabalho que teve no Brasil. Estou aliviada que ele está tao bem aqui. Estou sentindo bem de sentir segura de andar na rua e voltar para casa em paz.

Vou voltar para o Rio, é lógico, provavelmente o ano que vem. Sempre irei voltar, especialmente para visitar a família do meu marido. Mas não sei se um dia vou voltar para morar. Não sei se tenho a habilidade de fazer isso tudo de novo. Ao mesmo tempo, me sinto muito carioca. Eu amo uma cidade onde não quero morar. Para mim, isso parece bem carioca mesmo. 

Fear

The funny thing about Brazilians is that they are incredibly suspicious of anything involving the U.S. government in their country, or foreigners who dare set foot in the Amazon, but they will kiss the ground of any major celebrity that goes to Brazil. Most of the time, they're there on vacation or to promote themselves, but not always.

That's why Madonna in Brazil is absolutely terrifying to me.

First off, I should point out that though Madonna is still undeniably a big celebrity in the US, it's gotten to the point where a lot of us are mostly just scared of her. We have also grown used to her diva whims, from deciding she's a Jew with her Kabbalah "conversion" to strong-arming Malawi into an essentially illegal adoption of her second African child. It's not that she doesn't do anything useful; she started a non-profit in 2006 called Raising Malawi to aid orphans there. But in Oprah-esque fashion, instead of building 1000 schools and 1000 hospitals, she decided to build a single school for $15 million (incidentally, local villagers are blocking its construction). This is why celebrities should not be in charge of development. 

Anyway, along came Jesus Luz, the strapping 23 year-old Brazilian model, and Madonna forgot about Africa for awhile. Now, she's in Rio with him, where her agenda is extremely odd and frankly, is just highly suspicious to me. According to some, she's supposed to meet Jesus's parents for the first time, since he is serious about their relationship and wants to get married, which would be Madonna's third marriage. The other thing is that she was supposed to meet with AfroReggae, one of Rio's most successful non-profits, to discuss working with them on projects and to visit several favelas where they work. Mysteriously, she cancelled the meeting and the excursions, though she did meet with a group of kids from a different non-profit--but they had to meet her at her hotel (Fasano, claro). Methinks all those upper class Brazilians she's hanging out with scared her away from the favelas.

Despite cancelling the AfroReggae plans, she had plenty of time to hit several upscale restaurants around the city, including Sushi Leblon and Yume. She also hung out with her buddy, zillionaire Eike Batista; he lent her his private jet for her trip and let her work out at his house. She's due to go to a big dinner he's hosting tonight along with Rio's mayor and governor, who are quite nearly drooling about the meeting. She's allegedly in Sao Paulo this afternoon to visit a Kabbalah center and to meet with a rabbi, and later she is expected to meet with Lula's Chief of Staff and presidential candidate, Dilma Rousseff, as well as the first lady. Maybe I'm just skeptical, but I find it incredibly inappropriate for a celebrity of her caliber to meet with so many politicians, especially on the eve of an election year and what is on a supposedly leisurely visit. It's just fishy.

Additional note: the military police have been escorting Madonna everywhere, and even got into a tiff with paparazzi when she first arrived in Rio. Does anyone else think it's inappropriate for the government to provide free security to Madonna when it doesn't even provide it to far too many Cariocas?

While it's true Brazil is very popular right now (I cannot wait to pick up this week's Economist), Madonna is in a way just like almost every other gringa I met in Rio, the majority of whom were there because of a significant other. I loved Brazil from the second I got there for the first time, but if it hadn't been for Eli, it's very possible I would have wound up moving somewhere else in Latin America. I have to give Jesus credit, who seems like a vapid model but could likely be the one encouraging all of these different plans.

The point is, I suppose, is to beware of the wolf in sheep's clothing with terrifyingly muscular arms. Just ask Malawi.

Blackout

Originally, I was going to write about the mini skirt debacle, the attack on Caetano, or why Madonna in Brazil terrifies me, but all that will have to wait until tomorrow.

Last night, a massive blackout hit south and central Brazil, including the states of Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Minas Gerais, Mato Grosso do Sul, DF, Goias, and Espirito Santo. Later reports included other states as well, including Santa Catarina, Rio Grande do Sul, Parana, Mato Grosso, Pernambuco, and Bahia. Rio, however, was the worst hit.

Something, though it's not clear what, happened to the Itaipu hydroelectric dam, one of the largest in the world, that provides electricity for a large portion of Brazil as well as Paraguay (there was a power outage in Paraguay, too). Coincidentally, the blackout occurred days after a 60 Minutes report about two power outages in Brazil in 2005 and 2007 believed to have been caused by hackers.

People joked around on Twitter, saying it was a marketing ploy for the movie 2012, or that Madonna was to blame. But the truth was that it was really scary, with the two largest cities in the country plunged into darkness, especially during the beginning of the summer with high temperatures. Early reports claimed that there was a total outage at Itaipu, and that it was caused by some sort of "accident" or "disruption." Another report claimed it was related to bad weather. A source at BBC claims a short circuit in Sao Paulo (?) caused the blackout.

In the meantime, reports from Rio claimed thugs were taking advantage of the darkness to mug people left in the streets. The governor allegedly sent both the police and SWAT teams (BOPE) into the city to ensure order (que pena he doesn't do that on a regular basis when there is electricity), and several BOPE teams were sent to man two of the major highways. In Sao Paulo, city officials suspended the usual traffic arrangements of rotating license plates, and urged people not to go out in the morning. Supposedly, people stranded in Sao Paulo crowded bus stops, and those who couldn't get onto the buses hitched rides on the backs of trucks. The Globo website was down during and after the blackout.

Interestingly, Itaipu started a Twitter account last night after the blackout and started following people who had mentioned it. They released an official statement declaring that the cause of the blackout did not originate at the plant itself, and that it was probably due to an accident that affected the plant's energy transmissions. They were quick to point out that in the 25 years of its existence, Itaipu had never had all 20 generators completely shut down. This, somehow, was not particularly reassuring.

While some will be quick to accuse Brazil of having vulnerable technology, this is something that could have happened anywhere. What's terrifying is how a single power plant could affect so many people, and how dangerous a prolonged blackout could be. This incident should be a warning to every country about just how vitally important power grid security is.

But if one positive thing came from the blackout, it is most definitely this.

Famous Brazilians in the U.S.

I noticed that there are quite a few Brazilians, at least ones born there or with a Brazilian parent, who have made it to the big time in the U.S., but not many Americans know about their roots. Here is a little collection of some of them; if you can think of more, please leave a comment!

• Morena Baccarin, the star of ABC's new sci-fi show V. She plays the "head alien" whose face has been plastered all over the U.S. in the past week or so. Interestingly, she is Carioca (!) and was raised in New York City, and studied at Juilliard. Her mom was an actress in Brazil and moved to the U.S. in the 1980s, and her dad still lives in Rio.
• Camilla Belle, a TV and movie actress who has been in Hollywood since she was little, and starred in several movies, including "When a Stranger Calls" and "Push." She also recently starred in a Brazilian movie called "À Deriva." Though she was born in the US, her mother is Brazilian, and she speaks fluent Portuguese. She has family in Sao Paulo, and some of her favorite foods include brigadeiro, pao de queijo, and feijoada.
• Rodrigo Santoro, Brazil's most famous actor export who has starred in dozens of American and Brazilian TV shows and movies. Though Brazilians are probably muttering "Duh!" under their breath, you'd be amazed how many Americans think he's Argentine or Italian. Rodrigo was born in Petropolis and grew up in Rio de Janeiro.
• Alice Braga, Sonia Braga's niece, was born in Sao Paulo and started out doing Brazilian movies. She eventually got roles in Hollywood and was in "I am Legend," "Blindness" and "Crossing Over."
• Alessandra Ambrosio, Victoria's Secret and top fashion model. She was born in Rio Grande do Sul and started her American career in New York.
• Adriana Lima, Victoria's Secret model, fashion model, and actress. She was born in Salvador, Bahia and also began her American career in New York.
• Ana Beatriz Barros, top model. She's mineira!
• Gisele, one of the world's most famous models and an occasional actress. Seriously, if you didn't know that one, I can't help you!
• Nenê, basketball player with the Denver Nuggets. He's from a small city in Sao Paulo state.
• Leandro Barbosa, basketball player with the Phoneix Suns. He's originally from Sao Paulo.

Around the interwebs

As a reminder, here's where you can find me around the interwebs when there's not a post up here, or to connect with other readers and/or Brazilians and Brazilophiles:

• Orkut group
• Facebook group
• Twitter
• Portuguese Blog
• Dooce Community
• NaNoWrimo
• Good Reads

You can also check for guest posts on these blogs, though I will usually post or link to them here or on Twitter:

• LatAmThought
• Amo Muito

Out of my mind

Awhile back, when I went to Floripa on my first totally solo vacation, an idea came to me for a fiction book. It wasn't much, but I started forming some concepts as I sat alone on the beach. For some reason, I didn't do anything with them, even as more ideas came along after I went home and as they festered at the back of my mind ever since. It's not that I didn't have time; I didn't really have the desire to do anything about it. (Plus, the Internet is eternally distracting.) Also, being that I work best on deadlines and put existing commitments above personal projects, it never made it to the top of my to-do list.

But then, by way of Brazen Careerist, I came across a little event called National Novel Writing Month, run by a small non-profit in San Francisco. The idea is to write a 50,000 word noel in a month. As the website describes:

"Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly."

Now this is not at all my style - I'm a perfectionist - but I was also notorious in high school and college for writing obscenely long papers, sometimes longer than necessary. So in theory, it's doable, though I have no realistic expectations of finishing, nor of coming out with a decent end result.

In any event, I'm going to give it a try, for nothing more than to force myself to at least give it a shot and see what I come up with. Being that I now have a part-time job, freelance work, job hunting, and a possible second part-time job, I won't have much time. But I figure that if I force myself to join a huge group of people doing the same thing (peer pressure always works), then I will at least start. You can track my progress here, and I would gladly welcome any friends to join and try this ridiculous feat with me.

Collapse

I've kept in touch with the Ballet de Santa Teresa, where I was a volunteer while I lived in Rio. They send me updates and keep former volunteers in the loop, which is nice to be able to see how things are going. But last night I received really bad news. 

The staff sent out a series of images to the listserv, and this was the first one:

See where the blue table is? There used to be a wall and a hill back there. Apparently, the wall completely fell apart and there was a landslide, bringing down so much debris that the school had to be closed.

Classes are temporarily being held at a local cultural center, but they're hoping to find a facility to move to until they figure out what will happen to the wrecked school. Since as usual, funds are extremely low, they are currently looking for help, so the kids still have somewhere to go.

If you know of a potential facility that the ballet could use (ideally in the vicinity of Santa Teresa or Centro), or advice about how they should proceed, please email balletdesantateresa at hotmail dot com. I'm sure they'd welcome donations, too. Now more than ever, they are in desperate need of help.