Brynn Barineau

Author: Brynn

  • Blog Upgrading: Brynn in Brazil’s Coming of Age Tale

    Blog Upgrading: Brynn in Brazil’s Coming of Age Tale

    My new job has done the impossible.  I have been made to feel like a computer guru.  My husband, brother, stepmother, and any other family member I have recruited as tech support over the years, will marvel at this development and immediately question the quality of teaching staff at my school.

    I’m not particularly good with computers. I know I could get better, but I have no patience for them.  The slightest thing goes wrong and I get a knot between my shoulders and a seriously cranky attitude.  One complication and I shutdown faster than my MacBook. This assumption I have that anything beyond word processing will make me want to cry, is why I continued to put off upgrading my blog.

    Back when I started writing,(I think this is probably true for most expats) my blog was a simple way to keep family informed about what I was doing in Brazil.  It’s so much easier to write a single blog post than 20 emails. I got a Mac with iWeb and realized I could have a blog with pretty pictures.  Oh, and a cool black background.  And no code!!! I never had to see rows of letters and symbols ever! My needs were simple, and iWeb filled them.

    Last year, we moved to Cachoeiro de Itapemerim. I was without work and started putting a lot of energy into the blog.  I found a whole world of expat communities online and started registering my blog on their sites.  One day, I got a comment from someone I had never met, spoken to or heard of.  A complete stranger who found my blog, read a post, and liked it enough to spend her time leaving a comment.  My sense of validation only increased when I discovered the commenter was a gifted photographer, cook, writer and blogger.  Only her blog, named after a brine soaked sea fish, was a hundred times more sophisticated than mine. (Really, you should check it out.)

    I rediscovered my love for writing.  By writing regularly, inspiration came more easily. My blog soon had a ton content and some regular readers.  The quality of my posts improved. (At least I think, do you all agree?)  This was the point when iWeb started to let me down.  It’s still hard to admit because I’m a Mac worshipper but iWeb, in the words of my husband, “really sucks.”

    He’d been telling my this for years and I had ignored him.  This made acknowledging the need for a better platform, all the more difficult.  Not only did I have to betray my Mac and face headache inducing computer stuff, but I also had to admit my husband was and had been right all along.  (Honestly, I’d rather try writing software code.)  The other major hurdle was that now I had three years worth of content to move and no idea where to start.

    Fortunately, my parents put me in touch with a guy who would do everything for me.  He’d get a new domain name, host site, and move all my content. This was back in December.  Due to various delays that included him being stranded because of blizzards and me having serious stomach issues that had me postponing every Skype call, it took two months to get everything set up.

    Thus, the two month silence at Coconut Water (UPDATE July 2015: Now officially Brynn in Brazil).

    I’m glad I did it.  WordPress is so much better.  Not as simple, but I think I’m ready to use real blogger tools.  In the end though, no one could figure out how to transfer all my content, because, cue husband, “iWeb sucks.” Yes, I know.  I’m now copying and pasting old posts into the new site a few at a time.  50 down.  70 to go.  I’m still glad I moved.

    I hope you all like the new site and design as much as I do.  I’m in love with the banner, which was also the result of someone generously donating their time.  Turns out I’m neither a coder or designer.  That’s ok.  I just want to write.

    Oh, and the reason I’m the computer guru among my fellow teachers?  The school has started moving to Macs and no one knows how to use them.  I wonder if I should talk to them about iWeb.

  • Coolest extracurricular activity ever!

    Coolest extracurricular activity ever!

    I’ve spent the last couple of days editing essays.  I’m drowning in essays.  During a break, I watched a clip of the Daily Show where they showed a commentator ranting about how teachers are paid too much for a part-time job.  I envisioned ramming a two-inch stack of ungraded essays down his throat until he chocked.  It made me happy and reminded me that I still had about 20 essays left to grade.

    When not being used as a weapon, my student’s essays are also an endless source of amusement.  I fill entire dinner conversations relating what pearls of wisdom my kids have come up with.  The essays are also helping me compile a list of potential extra curricular activities available in Vitoria for any future Brazilian-Americans I have in my house.

    It’s fascinating to see what activities teenagers in the US and Brazil share and what activities are unique not just to Brazil but to Vitoria.

    It’s no surprise a kid in Vitoria can be a soccer player but I also have competitive basketball players, skateboarders and surfers as well.  Judo is pretty popular.  There are ballet studios and acting lessons. With my guitar players, drummers, pianists and singers, I can supply any event in Vitoria with a band.  One of my students has taken cooking lessons and runs a small business catering desserts for parties.  Another is a financier in the making, having taken classes on the stock market and started his own investment portfolio.

    But I think my favorite hobby, of all the hobbies I’ve read about, is competitive oceanic fishing.  It’s not my favorite because it’s anything I’d like to be proficient at myself but because it is such an utterly foreign activity to the suburban, Atlanta culture where I grew up.  Competitive oceanic fishing!  Maybe there were some kids in my school who regularly caught trout from the Chattahoochee River but nobody was heading to Australia to compete catching marlins.  Which is exactly what one of my students did.

    I mentioned this to my husband and he said “Oh sure, Vitoria is one of the best spots for oceanic fishing along Brazil’s coast.”  Huh, a new fact about Vitoria thanks to my students’ essays.  It seems one of the perks of being a teachers is that the learning goes both ways.

    Oceanic fishing is a skill I would never have thought to offer any of my future kids.  It wasn’t part of my childhood and I would not have made it part of theirs.  Now I know.  And if the kid doesn’t like fishing, there’s always surfing, sailing, samba dancing, cooking, judo and of course, soccer.

  • New job, new blog

    New job, new blog

    Almost two months since my last post.  I know.  Bad blogger, but I have an excuse.  I got a job.  A hard job.  And the blogging had to be put aside until I found my footing.  Let me explain.

    The last time I was required to show up for work five days a week was September, 2006.  As a result, I have been blind sided, chewed up, spit out, wrung out, and manhandled by a regular work schedule.  And I’m so much happier.

    When hired as a teacher at a private school here in Vitoria, the moment called for champagne, but I have to make a rather embarrassing confession.  While I believed teaching was a better job than no job at all, I deep down thought it was beneath my potential.  I truly believed teaching was a profession people joined who didn’t think they could make it in more competitive fields.  I had a truly brilliant roommate in college who was passionate about teaching and education, but I didn’t base my assessment of the field on her.  Rather, in my facebook colored perception of reality, I based my assessment on all the mediocre students I had gone to high school with who are now, according to their profiles, teachers.  If someone who barely passed biology could go on to be a science teacher how hard can the job be?

    When I get home at night my feet are throbbing. My voice is worn out.  My patience is gone.  I don’t have energy to care about what’s for dinner let alone remain standing long enough to make it.  I drift listlessly around my apartment from 9:30 to 10 because I just can’t go to bed before 10 but I can’t think hard enough to give myself any direction.  I’m asleep by 10:30.

    It’s pretty hard.

    I now know the people in the US currently complaining about cushy teacher salaries have never really considered what teaching entails.  There’s pretty much a consensus among people who have kids that raising them is hard.  Kids don’t pay attention. They don’t think.  They lack knowledge, motor skills, and basic hygiene often into adulthood.  Ideally parents come as a two person team but often one parent ends up in charge of the kids.  Again, we agree that one parent with two or three kids, “that’s a tough job.”  Teachers have 20 kids, all to themselves, for 180 days a year.

    Think about handling a herd of those adorable, self-involved, cognitively underdeveloped munchkins.  Now think about having them all day, every day.  Did I mention you have to do more than just keep them from gluing their hair together or cracking their head open as they lean back in their chair? No, preventing physical injury is not enough.  You must also keep their attention and help them learn something they didn’t know before coming to you.  You must stimulate their creativity and logical reasoning.  You are not allowed to send the slow ones, or the obnoxious ones, or the slightly smelly ones off into a corner.  You must work with all of them.

    To sum up, a teacher must take a group of kids, keep them safe, awake, focused and then improve them.  A teacher must send the kids home as better, more knowledgeable human beings every day or she is not doing her job.  Teaching requires creativity, improvisation, patience, public speaking, stamina, organization, diplomacy, all in addition to knowledge of the subject being taught.

    Any teacher making less than a six figure salary is underpaid.

    I am underpaid. But happy.  I was wrong about teaching.  It is an immensely rewarding challenge.  One I’m thoroughly enjoying.  Not that I would say no to a six figure salary.

  • Toxic Pineapples

    Toxic Pineapples

    As a nerd and compulsive reader, I’ve always been a fan of knowledge. When choosing to know something or not, I choose know it. I’m reevaluating that stance.

    Not on everything. I still want to know how to drive a car, operate a gas stove without killing myself, and long division. What I don’t want to know is the history of my food. I’m done hearing about the nauseating conditions of pig farms, toxic levels of mercury in my sushi, and exactly what is inside my hot dog.

    I love hot dogs! They’re mouthwatering. They taste like summer, baseball games, and a Saturday afternoon spent grilling out back. Hot dog haters, have you ever tasted a dog fresh off the grill, sizzling with the skin wrinkled and striped black, smothered in ketchup, mustard, and relish? No, I doubt it because if you had you’d never want to know anything about it except how savory the first bite is. You would not want hot dogs ruined by knowing exactly what parts of the pig are in them.

    I’ve accepted that I’m going to die eventually. Nothing I do will grant me everlasting life. Because something has to get me in the end, I’m totally ok with it being too many french fries, fungus laden peanuts, or toxic pineapples.

    The peanut fungus came up in a discussion with a doctor recently. I mentioned a love of peanuts and his brow creased. He asked in what quantity I ate them? Vast quantities. He frowned. Uh-oh.

    Turns out Brazilian peanuts are prone to a fungus that will eat and destroy your liver. Or something to that effect. He was speaking in Portuguese but I could understand something bad enough happens to your liver that he does not eat Brazilian peanuts.

    Thankfully, American peanuts do not have this problem, which means my hoard of Whole Foods Peanut Butter is safe.

    Jumping on the band wagon of ruining foods Brynn loves, my husband started talking about pineapples. Sliced pineapple is the single greatest frozen yogurt topping. Period. I listened with growing horror as my husband told about a lawyer who works with the local farmers in our state. This lawyer learned the farmers get pineapples to ripen out of season by dousing them with pesticides.

    Wonderful. How can you buy local, when your local farmers coat your fruit in poison, not to keep the bugs off, but for the chemical reaction it produces in the fruit?

    My husband says pineapples should be ok in season. Should be but maybe not. Maybe some farmer wanted to get his pineapples to market first, so he sped things up with a little chemical enhancement.

    This is why I want to remain ignorant about my food. I’m going to go to the gym regularly, drink lots of water, eat sweets in moderation and live as long as that lifestyle lets me. That lifestyle will include hot dogs, peanuts and pineapples and I’m going to savor them in forced ignorant bliss.

  • My Scientifically-Proven, Stable Marriage

    My Scientifically-Proven, Stable Marriage

    I’d like to thank the New York Times for bringing to my attention the fact my marriage is sustainable indefinitely.

    That’s not my romantic idealism talking. No, it’s based on the results of a quiz I took on self-expansion in your relationship. The quiz was developed by a university professor which make the results totally scientifically valid. Since I scored off the charts, I now have irrefutable proof that twinkies will go bad before my marriage does.

    In order to determine what chance your marriage has of sustaining, the quiz measures how much you get out of your relationship. That’s the great truth the psychologists behind the quiz realized. People are happier in relationships they get something out of. Apparently, giving up all your own needs and losing yourself in your relationship is not a recipe for a sustainable relationship. Surprising results given the long term happiness historically achieved by martyrs.

    The creators of the quiz do distinguish between sustainable and lasting marriages. Sustainable implies continuing happiness, while lasting implies children or a faith that condemns you to hell for divorce. Not having any of the things that support a lasting marriage, I had my fingers crossed this quiz would show I have what makes a sustainable marriage. I do.

    You can take the quiz here, but I’ve listed some of the questions below.

    -How much does being with your partner result in your having new experiences?

    -When you are with your partner, do you feel a greater awareness because of him or her?

    -How much does you partner increase your ability to do new things?

    -How much do your partner’s strengths as a person compensate for some of your own weaknesses?

    -How much has being with your partner resulted in your learning new things?

    -How much does your partner increase your knowledge?

    You’re supposed to answer on a scale of 1 – 7 with 7 being “omg! so, so much!” The higher the score the more sustainable the relationship.

    In looking over my results, I realized the surest way to a happy, fulfilling marriage is to marry someone from a different culture. I think I’m on to something big here. Marry even a moderately supportive person from a another culture and there is no way you won’t answer at least a 5 on every question. “Providing new experiences,” “increasing your knowledge,” or creating a “greater awareness”? This stuff happens everyday when your partner has a different culture than your own. I don’t know if the psychologists even realize what they’ve discovered. The most fulfilling relations are cross-cultural ones.

    That really is nice to know. Before this quiz there was all this other research saying how marriages across cultures are statistically less likely to succeed. Based on the different cultures, different religions, languages, the fact we’re both children of divorced parents and the 16 year age difference, the experts seemed to agree my marriage is destined to crash and burn leaving a crater that will alter weather patterns.

    But I can stop worrying now because I have a quiz which proves that I am in a happy and sustainable relationship. I can ignore all those other studies, including the one that says calculating odds on a relationship between two entirely unique individuals is ridiculous.

  • Learning Brazilian History at the Dentist

    Learning Brazilian History at the Dentist

    Something I enjoy about living in a different culture are the little reminders, even after years, that you’re not from here. Usually it’s a small thing that catches you by surprises and causes a double take. These cultural surprises are often trivial matters that you didn’t even anticipate being different, such as how socks get folded or the absence functional seat belts in the back seats of taxis.

    I wonder how long a person must live in a place before the little “Wait, what?” moments taper off. I’ve been in Brazil for four and a half years but just last week I was thrown by a simple question on a medical history form.

    At the dentist recently, I filled out a new patient form. I’ve become accustomed to routinely answering what I feel are very personal question such as marriage status and profession for everyone including the woman who sold me my bookshelf, but this question stopped me.

    “Cor:_____________”

    Cor in Portuguese means color. A medical history form handed to me by the dentist’s office asked for my color. I blinked in disbelief. I double checked with my husband. “Does this say color?” He told me it did. I asked “Ok, color of what exactly?” even though I knew the answer. He looked at the receptionist who said simply “skin.”

    For an American, an American from Atlanta, Georgia who heard about slavery, the civil rights movements, and racial tensions every year in school and was in high school during the ridiculously overdue process of getting the confederate flag off of the state flag, a doctor’s office asking for skin color is shocking.

    Four years in Brazil and I can still be shocked by a single word on a form. A simple piece of information that would never be asked for in my own culture. Or would it?

    How often is a person in the states asked to designate her race? Isn’t the same question just phrased in what, for Americans, is a more comfortable way? Sure, we’re usually told that question is “optional” and for “statistical purposes only” but the question is still asked.

    In talking to my husband afterwards, I learned that there are actually some Afro-Brazilian groups that are lobbying to get “color” included on forms. When Brazil first became a republic any mention of race was outlawed under the argument it would prevent discrimination. The result, however, was that millions of Brazilians who had been enslaved based solely on their race had no way to receive any programs targeted specifically  to help them overcome circumstances created by race, thus locking them into the lowest levels of society. Now, certain Afro-Brazilian groups want “color” on forms to have data about color and race in Brazil.

    So much history from a form at the dentist. That’s why, even though each cultural surprise is a clear reminder I’m living in someone else’s culture, I welcome them. Each one is a learning opportunity. Not that I always appreciate them. Learning takes energy and often I only have enough energy to be annoyed and call whatever is different stupid. (Both creativity and tolerance suffer when I’m tired.) But on good days having to pay for bottled water leads to a discussion of sewage infrastructure and a dentist’s form opens a dialogue on racial history.

  • My Dentist, My Sadist

    Today, I met the world’s friendliest dentist. Hmm, maybe I should rephrase given that dentists have not traditionally set the bar high when it comes to amicability. Today, I met a dentist who could not have been friendlier had she been inhaling her own laughing gas.

    It was my first trip to the dentist in Brazil. It was my first trip to the dentist in a decade. Maybe not quite that long. It’s hard to remember.

    Anyway, the last dentist I liked had video games and Disney movies playing in her waiting. Since the age of ten, every dentist I’ve had has been competent but distant and all business, in the way I imagine disembowlers must have been.

    My dentist today greeted me with a huge smile and flattering yet oddly enthusiastic declaration of how pretty I am. I think complimenting might be office policy to hook new patients and if so, I was sold. The smiling and over-the-top-compliments were such a welcome change for a dentist’s office; I thanked her and introduced myself to Doctor Gabriella.

    Brazilians use first names right away, even in professional contexts. It gives every encounter a personal feel. In Brazil, I don’t have bankers, dentists and doctors. I have a large network of personal acquaintances with a diverse skill set.

    Gabriella and I chatted about all the obvious first meeting facts: where are you from, how long have you lived here, which country do you like better. (There is no way to answer that last question honestly without offending someone. I just go with “Wow, that’s hard. They’re so many good things about both.”) Right before we got started I mumbled something about how long it had been since my last trip and then I waited for the shaming to begin.

    I’d always assumed that dentists are taught that shame is the only way to make people floss regularly. A patient must be told whatever she is doing, it is not done frequently or well enough and ultimately not sufficient to keep her teeth from falling out of her head. And toothless people go to hell.

    It was quite a shock then when Doctor Gabriella gently plied my lips and cheek away from my teeth and assured me they were very clean. When she spotted a cavity she called it a “little thing” that we can fix quickly. No lectures. A cavity and no lecture. I wonder if this woman knows what a disgrace she is to her profession.

    When we were done she walked me to reception area, asked me to come back for a cleaning and cavity filled, then she gave me a big hug and kiss on the cheek. A Brazilian that hugs. A dentist that is genuinely pleasant. I was completely thrown. I didn’t know how to react. I did know I liked it. So I’m going back for more next Tuesday at 9am.

  • A Brazilian Christmas

    A Brazilian Christmas

    Describing holiday gatherings in my family as hectic would be an understatement. There are multiple sets of grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins to visit and dine with. The table is buried under enough food for a week-long bacchanalia. Enough dessert is prepared for every person in attendance to have her own cake.

    In comparison, the first Christmas I spent with my in-laws in Brazil was a pleasant afternoon picnic with some acoustic guitar.

    It was surprising to me that my American Christmases are filled with more food, presents and cousins than those of my Brazilian in-laws. It certainly seems to go against the stereotype of family-focused Brazilian culture and allowing-the-disintegration-of-the-family American culture. But which “American” culture am I referring to?

    Middle-class America? Middle-class, Latino, urban American from Miami? The diversity of the US makes it difficult to define what is American and the same is true of Brazil. What is Brazilian? Well, are we talking about the Paulista sushi chef of Japanese heritage or the Carioca taxi driver of Italian/Portuguese ancestry?

    I’m not saying overarching national or regional cultures don’t exist, just that within any culture are seemingly endless subcultures that create huge variety among people and families.

    I realized this year, after hearing many accounts of “Brazilian” Christmases, that my southern family celebrates Christmas in a more “Brazilian” way than my Brazilian husband does.

    Growing up, I’d usually celebrate Thanksgiving in South Georgia on my Grandmother’s pecan farm. As one of the oldest, I got to drive my younger cousins and the kids of my dad’s cousins (who I believe are called second cousins) around in my great-uncle’s golf cart. On my mom’s side, Christmas dinner often included the daughter of my step-dad’s brother-in-law’s sister, a relationship the English language has no term for.

    Because my parent’s are divorced, Christmas day usually included visits no fewer than four houses. One set of grandparents has since moved to Florida, so we’re down to a mere three present opening sessions. Three homes is more than enough to leave my husband shell-shocked with only the strength to sit upright, mumbling to himself, “It’s so much. It’s so much.”

    Whether he was talking about the number of presents, pies, or names of family members to remember I don’t know, but after my first Christmas lunch in Rio with only his immediate family and a single pudding for dessert, I understood his culture shock.

    We now make a point of spending Christmas in the U.S.  Every December we fly to Georgia for lots of family and food. It’s a very Brazilian holiday.

  • Why are you here?

    “Why are you here?” I probably posed that question 20 times over the course of my teacher training. Asking a person to explain her existence may seem a bit forward for a first meeting but among expats it’s typically asked as a follow up question to visa status. “So, why are you here?”

    In this context “here” is understood to be Brazil and answers ranged from the romantic to the idealistic. While our individuals stories differed, whether South African, Irish, or New Zealander, all of us attending the training were united by the designation “native English speaker” plus the fact we had chosen to take up residency amongst non-English speakers. And this was more than enough to make for two weeks of great conversations, lasting friendships and several explanations of cricket.

    Jump to four days after the last training session and I’m suddenly posing the same question to myself, “Why am I here?” I was seated amongst a few bleached blonde teenagers in letter jackets and puffy-haired, middle-aged women in college football sweatshirts at a Chinese restaurant in a strip mall. The day before I had listened to my grandfather calmly discuss Obama’s intention to make the US a socialist state. While shopping, I’d overheard a conversation as a man fervently hoped the US “drops some nukes” on Iran, item one on the worst Christmas wish list ever.

    Then I was deciding between lemon or kung pao chicken while the children at the next table called for “Mama.” I felt as if I was observing a scene without taking part in it, like Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Present, only instead of quotable, crippled children there were text-messaging Republicans.

    So, why was I having Chinese at a strip mall surrounded by people I would probably never have great conversations or lasting friendships with? Because I frickin’ love Chinese food. Because I can understand every southern-accented word spoken and I can identify which college claims which animal among the alligators, tigers, and bulldogs featured on sweatshirts.

    I’m here because we drove to the shopping center in five minutes on a four lane divided highway. A divided highway! It’s how angels travel around heaven.

    I’m here because I can mentally roll out a blue print of this strip mall and know that starting at the far end, my printer ink is at Staples and my reasonably priced jeans are at Gap. I bought my camera battery at the store next door to the Chinese restaurant with the wonderful egg drop soup. My salon is further down and three doors down from the grocery store. I know that while the grocery store’s bananas will taste like wax, it carries all the peanut butter I could eat in a lifetime.

    I’m here because at the far end of the parking lot there is a Target and a Borders both of which I can wander through blindfolded. I know without doubt that every suburbanite wants a coffee from the Starbucks inside Target but not a single one of them will walk across the parking lot to get one. They will get in their cars and drive alongside the paved sidewalk to a closer parking space.

    I’m here because I know this place and I know these people. This is where I became the person who moved to Brazil and became a registered Democrat. Clearly this place is not as soul crushing as I like to paint it. The truth is I share a lot with my fellow Chinese food patrons, from a love of a separate and clearly marked returns counter to a fanatical observation of traffic laws.

    At Christmas a person wants to feel at home and this is my home. I moved to Brazil but my family and my culture is here. That’s why I’m here among people I understand and who would agree that cricket is a ridiculous attempt at a sport.