Thursday/Friday

*A lot has happened over the weekend, and little time to get internet* *Also, camera is needing batteries, none seem to work*

Thursday was the day after Wednesday, the first day that I arrived in Indaiatuba. It was only one day.
I woke up late, when Ana’s mother was to leave. She’d gotten back at 9 am from the hospital, and had stayed up the entire time I was sleeping. It seemed she hadn’t slept the entire time I had gotten there. She made me a map of Indaiatuba and left me keys to get back into the house. After writing my first blog and then wasting time, I finally headed out. First, I was to go to the supermarket. Saopaolisto, I think. I wanted batteries for my camera. Walked out, made a right at the first street, saw it. Pretty standard. Walked in, found batteries, paid them, left. K. Walked back to the house, then to where she said downtown was.
Downtown was at the same street that the house was on. 6 blocks later, I was at what seemed to be downtown. Brazil isn’t so hard. Sure, when you cross the street, you’ll probably get hit by a car…actually I can’t justify that. Fun fact: red lights don’t necessarily mean you are gonna be stuck until green. You roll up to that red light, you look to your right and left, and you go through it if no one is coming. Better yet, you just go fast enough that no one will hit you.

That night, a meal of wonderful leftovers. Rice, chicken, Guarana, muito bom! Pao de Quiejo. Mmm… Carlos came over halfway through the meal. He asked me if I wanted to go out to a youth club. That sounded just fine. He asked if I wanted to drink, and that sounded just fine, too.

We head to Campinas in his Peugot, and everything feels so much faster when the speedometer reads 130, I don’t care if it’s in kmph. Now, when you arrive in Campinas, you're probably half way there. The city isn’t on any sort of logical grid. Every time I went through Campinas with Carlos, I thought he was just continually lost, but really, you need to take 4 lefts to do what going straight does in America. Millions of turns to get where you want to go.

Carlos gives me a cd of Nacao Zumbi, a band I had liked on the ride back from the airport. Obrigado. We pick up his friend. He doesn’t speak much English, and I say I don’t speak much Portuguese. He knows much more English than I do Portuguese. We drive to the gas station and get a beer while his other friend gets ready. In the gas station, we get two Pilsners in bottles. Open them up, hop in the car, drive away. Brazil. No consequences. We park in front of his friends apartment tower and finish the beers. A homeless man drinking cachaça walks up to us. Carlos and his friend speak to him for a while. They tell him I’m American. Onsi de Septembro? Bombo. He was telling me of September 11. It was the next day. Amanha. How could I forget! He then continues to ask if I was Iraqi. Carlos says I’m an Iraqi American.

He wanders off. Carlos tells me that these alcoholics, they have big hearts.

Off to the bar with his other friend. The beers are in what I imagine to be 22 oz. bottles and used like pitchers. 4 small glasses are divided up between us. In addition, we order cicaixu, sic. Essentially, in the middle of this ball ,of what I imagine to be corn meal, is, in our case, gorgonzola cheese and shredded chicken. It’s fried up, and is fairly large. You grab a napkin, grab the bottom (shape is reminiscent of a hershey’s kiss) and bite into it. Add some hot sauce. It’s heavenly, and perfect drinking food. They had probably 40 different varieties, with different cheeses, different meat.

His two friends get up and leave the table, shake my hand, say they’ll be back, they are going to meet a friend. ‘I don’t know why they said that, they are going to smoke up outside.’ Carlos said. He orders me a straight Cachaça of a name I don’t remember. It was malty. It was strong. I drank it. He orders one for himself. Cheers. He orders a second one, the first was dark, this was clear. Somehow I knew it was going to be vicious. He takes half of it, passes it to me. No flavor, all burn. Now, food. Fried up fish. Fresh and all, shaped like a stick, obviously it was great.

His friends come back. “Chicago Boolls!” “yeah Michael Jordan” This lasts for a while. And, it’s just amazing what a little English, a lot of alcohol, and a sports icon can do for stunted conversation.

Friday.
I don’t wake up hungover and question if I ever did get drunk. I’m drinking about ¼ of a pint, and that 22 oz bottle? It’s split among 4 people. So, ¼ of a 22 oz bottle is less than a bottle of beer, so, even if it seemed like there was a lot of bottles last night…I don’t know. This day, a more reasonable wake up time of 9:30. The house is empty. I make a glass of milk and a cup of instant coffee. Butter spread on bread. An hour later, Carlos comes in, he had washed his car. “Are you hungry?” “No, it’s fine. I just ate” “We go to Campinas, we play tennis and then we’ll Portuguese and then we’ll barbecue, you like?” “I like Barbecue.” We drive to Campinas and go to his apartment that he shares with his father, Ana’s father. It was a short introduction, more was to come. And into the car, zooming in circles like a penny in a funnel game. The club is out of town a ways, in a town that in many ways reminds me of the Italian village in the special episode of Everybody loves Raymond, where they go to Italy. We walk in, tropical plants, trees, clay tennis courts. Futeball field. Pool. Place for parties. And rows upon rows of grills and picnic tables. It was here I met Antonio.

Antonio, Carlos’s friend, introduces himself saying he doesn’t speak much English, but unlike me, and unlike the others I’ve met, it doesn’t stop him from trying to converse, be it in any language. He’s starting the grill. At the bottom, an opening where they place wood charcoal. A number of slots with handles you can place on different levels. They’d bought picanha, a large slab of beef I’d say is likely a tenderloin cut in America. Shishkabobs of beef cuts, garlic bread (pao de onho), coke and guarana. And bacon, cut really, really thick.

To season the meat, it’s just a light coating of coarse sea salt. The fire started and the meat placed on it. Over 4 hours, different meats would finish, and we’d constantly be eating. When it would be a while before meat, the pao de onho would be put on the grill.

I liked Antonio. He was 23, a computer programmer going back to school. He walked me to the pool. He said he had a girlfriend but showed me a ring on his ring finger. I asked if it was his fiancé, and he just put his hands to his throat and made choking sounds, spitting out Portuguese phrases that I assume meant he would not get engaged. He paused, waved me over, and showed me this gigantic bird I imagine is a duck. A black head with an orange beak, the black spreads like a Rorschach test on it’s otherwise white coat. “I don’t know if, eggs” he said. He then described with his hands, expressions and some English how much he liked the river adjacent to us, the trees, etc.

It’s worth noting here, Brazil has many otherwise beautiful places that are incredibly polluted. Not stinking and miscolored only, but filled with trash. Waterfalls foaming from chemicals as it stirs a cocktail of trash in a whirlpool below. This place was clean, and beautiful.

Antonio asks me where I’m going. I tell him Curitiba and I want to visit Florionopolis. Florionopolis is a beautiful coastal town. His response was almost a dance of violent pelvic thrusts, wild hand motions of blowing kisses and then curling up all together and croaching before he springs up again. “Oi man the women (kiss) there are so beautiful oh my god!” Everytime I would mention Florionopolis from here on out the same reaction, same speech, would be delivered.

Antonio liked history, he went on a long speech in Portuguese directed at me of everything he liked. I could only gather Machu Pichu and the sphinx, but it was 15 minutes long, so I assume the other 5 wonders, or 6, or 7, not sure what the wonders of the world are, were mentioned. The best discussion was on the BoP of Rio. They are the SWAT of the favelas. But seeing as how the favela’s are armed like a fortress, they are essentially marines. “I believe in my heart of hearts,” Antonio said, “That Swat could not control favelas like Bop” I guess I tend to agree. To bring you into the conversation, SWAT is used to precarious situations of a man or group of men who are holding something that must be kept safe. A hostage, holed up in a building. They typically aren’t going into, say, Davidian compounds. And in the movie SWAT, when they were ambushed by the gangs fully armed, they got destroyed.

But anyway, Antonio was essentially the Brazilian me. He described why I didn’t want to work in all hand gestures and gibberish. “Hey man blah blah blah” he mimmicks typing “oh and blahawofslk” he mimmicks handing things “Man fuck that.” Exactly.

He described how he just wanted to camp, be in nature and barbecue all day. And after tasting the barbecue, I don’t know how anyone could do anything else here.

We parted ways. I went with Carlos back to his apartment. “Mr. Ben,” Mr. Giampetro said. He then showed me how to work the shower. I’m not sure why. But anyways, I started watching TV with him. “Now you met the family. Me, her mother, her brother and my daughter,” he said. I realized how that was pretty cool. It has to be strange to have your only daughter going to different country to marry. And to know the family she’ll be around more I’m sure is comforting. As I pondered, he says “Brazil is good at two things, Soap Operas and athletics.” Now, I didn’t need to ponder that, that’s just fucking true.

We went to the bar and met Carlos’ girlfriend and her three friends. One spoke perfect English and had me sit near, the other spoke good English as well. There was a happy hour deal, $18 reais for all you can eat at the buffet of brazilian appetizer food and all you can drink of the beer. The one who speaks perfect English had went to Miami. She says she lived in Miami and elsewhere, Florida. She tells me how when she went to the beach in Miami, she realized she needed a swimsuit that covered up more, because they don’t wear those types of bathing suits in Brazil. Too tiny. For Miami. I realized I needed to find a beach.

She told me to go up to the buffet and try some of this food. They pickle a lot of things and it’s often delicious. Lots of bread, sausages. I come back with a plate of one or two of what I found interesting. The plate wasn’t full. “Oh, he’s trying to be polite” one said. They roared laughing. “You on a diet, aHEHEHEH” By not stocking the plate high, it was a sign of some form of femininity, I assume. “Is that your plate” one asked, 4 minutes later. “I think it’s hers.”