Category: American in Brazil

Brazil’s Political Crisis Explained for Non-Brazilians
A week ago, Brazil’s House of Deputies voted 367 to 137 to impeach President Dilma Rousseff. The vote lasted five hours and involved a lot of unnecessary shouting, spitting, and confetti.

I’m sure you heard about the impeachment vote even if you live outside of Brazil and aren’t following international politics. You might also have seen a headline about a corruption scandal in Brazil involving billions of dollars in public funds. Maybe you’ve read something about Brazil’s collapsing economy. The country’s gotten a lot of headlines in the last few months and a person could understandably be wondering, “What the hell is going on in Brazil?”

Here’s what’s going on in Brazil with enough context to paint a painfully vivid picture and enough jokes to make it palatable. To understand the extent of the seething rage under Brazilians’ normally chill exteriors, I need to jump back in time three decades.

Brazil is a relatively young democracy. The army seized control in 1964 and stayed in power until the mid-80s. The generals perfectly followed every page of the Military-Dictator Handbook, repressing speech, organizing, and all social rights. By 1980 student, workers, and militants were pushing back, and that year there were massive strikes organized, among others, by a young Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva aka Lula. Remember him. He’ll show up again. And again. And again until it becomes painfully ironic.

The strikes and protests helped lead to a “redemocratization” and a new constitution was adopted on October 5, 1988, making Brazil’s current government younger than I am.

The National Congress in Brasilia, currently hosting many future inmates.

The Constitution divided the Federal Government into three parts just like in the US: Legislative, Executive, and Judicial. Differently than the US, both the Executive branch and the Federal Government in general are much more powerful than in the US. Don’t be fooled by the constant use of flip-flops and nicknames in Brazil. The country is extremely hierarchical. It’s a cultural legacy brought to Brazil by Portugal’s policy of ruling colonies by refusing to build universities or even roads in order to keep people in total subjugation.

The current constitution reflects this deeply embedded hierarchy by giving certain powers and privileges to members of the federal government. For example, members of Congress, cabinet ministers, and the President can only be investigated and tried by the Supreme Court. Currently 303 members of Congress are facing criminal charges or under investigation, so the Justices must be pretty busy. At least the President of the Supreme Court gets the perk of being fifth in line to assume the presidency in the event of a political disaster.

Speaking of which, Dilma’s impeachment is actually the second impeachment of Brazil’s young republic. They impeached the guy back in ’92, but given the awful state of Brazil’s economy then, a presidential impeachment probably barely made the front page. The economic situation in Brazil throughout the 80s and early 90s was terrible. Like invest in precious metals because the country is on its third currency bad. The inflation rates looked more like typos than real data. People ran to the grocery store on payday snatching items off the shelves before the clerk could put a new price sticker on it.

During these turbulent early years of the republic, the Worker’s Party, (known as PT) which got started during the strikes in 1980, was the leader of the opposition coalition in Brazil.

Embracing its roots as the voice of the working classes, PT fought against the deeply entrenched economic elite and policies that facilitated a huge wealth gap. Lula ran for president as the PT candidate four times before finally winning in 2002. You only fail when you quit, right? At this point the economy had stabilized. Lula initiated some social welfare programs that lifted millions out of poverty. China began buying everything that Brazil could produce. The economy took off. By 2006 developed countries were like “Hey Brazil, when did you guys show up to the party? We gave your chair to India a few years ago, but we can ask for it back.”

An Economist cover from 2009

For the first time in 20 years, Brazil had a growing economy and stable government. In 2011 Brazil passed the United Kingdom to become the 6th largest economy in the world. Brazilians were pumped, proud, and ready to finally take their place as a global power.

All this history is to give you some idea of the soul-crushing societal let down that happened when the shit hit the fan in 2014.

From a growth rate of 7.5% in 2010, Brazil’s economy shrank 3.8% in 2015. Today, Brazil is the 9th largest economy behind Italy, which has a fraction of the people and arable land. Unemployment is 8.2% and inflation is 9.4%, compared the government’s target rate of 4.5%. All those numbers are just to say that the country’s in its second year of recession and people are pissed.

At the same time that Brazil’s economy was headed down the toilet, the largest corruption scandal in any democratic country ever was uncovered. Now is the time for popcorn because this story makes House of Cards seem small time and easy to follow.

Back in the 90s, there was a humble money launderer who made a decent living hiding illegal income of politicians. He was arrested, convicted, served his time, and released. By the mid 00s, federal police noticed he was back in business. Apparently in Brazil, money launderers are like great Mexican restaurants. They’re rare and if you find one, you keep going back even if you know deep down it’s probably being investigated by public authorities.

Well, police grabbed the humble launderer and the guy, who’d been to jail before and was not doing that again, cut a deal and started dropping names. And more names. And more names. Police had uncovered a corruption scheme amounting to more the $5.3 billion and involving the most powerful political and economic players in Brazil, the now internationally infamous Lava Jato case.

From 2004-2014 political leaders through the state owned oil company, Petrobras, awarded contracts to companies that grossly overcharged the government, and the companies used some of that excess payment to say “thank you” to congressmen and party leaders for awarding them the contracts in the first place. Nothing shows appreciation like a stack of cold hard cash.

And what party was in control of Congress and the Executive at this time? PT and its coalition partners. The Worker’s Party. The party that built it’s reputation on fighting for working class citizens against the privileged elite was the driving force behind the largest theft of taxpayer’s money in the history of democracy. (I told you Lula’s story got ironic.)

Foto Oficial Presidenta Dilma Rousseff. Foto: Roberto Stuckert Filho.

PT is also President Dilma’s party.

Back in 2015 when the investigation really took off, Dilma had NOT been implicated in the investigation. Everyone around was. PT’s treasurer is currently in jail. Lula’s former chief of staff is there too. Lula himself was under investigation. But not Dilma.

The thing is…Dilma was Chairwoman of Petrobras at exactly the time when the corruption was happening. That left 3 possibilities concerning her involvement:
1. She knew about and participated.
2. She knew about it but did nothing to stop it.
3. She didn’t have a clue Petrobras was overpaying by billions of dollars and was the worst chairperson in history.
All possibilities made Dilma look bad. Her approval rating plummeted to 13% only 3 months after her second inauguration in 2015.

And a cover from 2015

So to recap, by July of 2015 Brazil was grappling with shattered expectations, a terrible economy, an epic corruption scandal, and a universally disliked president. The Brazilian people were understandably furious at the government for blowing the country’s best chance in a century to really improve quality of life and become a global player.

However, none of these things is grounds for impeachment. According to the Constitution, a president can only be impeached for committing a crime while in office.

So how did Dilma end up getting impeached? We’re stepping into the political muck now. Put your boots on.

October 7, 2015 The Federal Accounting Tribunal files for impeachment accused Dilma of fiscal pedaling in 2014. They claim Dilma forced the state controlled bank to make social programs payments from the bank’s own funds because the government was short on money and her administration was trying to hide that fact during an election year. Technically, the federal government cannot payoff its own debts with the bank’s funds, but it’s been done by every president. It’s very shaky legal ground, like a frozen pond in spring during an earthquake shaky.

December 2, 2015 After ignoring the impeachment request for months, Eduardo Cunha, Brazil’s equivalent of Speaker of the House, formally accepts the charges. He does this hours after PT drops its support of Cunha in an ethics committee investigation of him on charges of bribery, tax evasion, and money laundering. But he swears, cross his heart-and-hope-to-die, he didn’t advance the impeachment out of spite.

December 17, 2015 The Supreme Court defines the impeachment process because the Chamber of Deputies can’t get its act together and form a commission of 65 deputies to consider the charges with any semblance of openness and fairness. The Court rejects two commissions formed by the Chamber, and the proceedings are paused indefinitely.

March 4, 2016 As part of the Lava Jato investigation, prosecutors bring former president Lula in for questioning. Federal Police raid his home. People freak out both for and against him.

March 11 In a jaw-dropping move, prosecutors ask for preventive detention for Lula. Lula supporters clashed with police when he was being taken for questioning. There is no doubt an actual arrest would spark violence.

March 13 Millions take to the streets in the largest anti-government protest in Brazilian history. The people weren’t protesting only Dilma’s administration. Several opposition politicians got booed off the mic when they tried to speak. It was truly The People v. The Federal Government.

March 14 In what has to be the most blatant middle-finger giving from a democratically elected president, President Dilma doubles down and starts discussing appointing Lula for a cabinet position! F.U. anti-government protestors! Dilma wants to make Lula Ministro de Casa Civil, the chief administrator for the Executive and the most powerful person after the president. Oh, and remember that members of the federal government can only be investigated by the Supreme Court, so the case against Lula would be moved away from the prosecutors currently investigating him. But it’s for the good of Brazil, guys!

March 15 Plea-deal testimony from Senator Delcídio do Amaral, the head of PT in the senate, is released and he testifies that Dilma’s Education Minister offered him a bribe in exchange for not working with prosecutors. He also says that President Dilma knew all about the corruption happening at Petrobras during her time as chairwoman. I can finally fill in my Dilma square on my Lava Jato Bingo card!

How convenient for future casting directors that Moro is an attractive man in real life.

March 16 Judge Sergio Moro, in charge of the Lava Jato case, releases a recording of a call between President Dilma and Lula revealing 1) that prosecutors had tapped a former president’s phone! and 2) Dilma seems to be appointing Lula only to keep him out of jail. While everyone freaked out over the phone call, a few did question if Judge Moro should have given up completely on judicial impartiality and released recordings in an ongoing investigation from a tap with a just-expired warrant.

March 17 Lula is sworn in as Minister. A new impeachment commission is sworn in. Basically, a lot of swearing happened in Brazil this day.

March 18 Supreme Court Justice Gilmar Mendes suspends Lula’s appointment on the grounds it was a blatant attempt to keep him from going to jail. Justice Mendes said it with more legal jargon but that was the gist of his decision. Also, large protests happen across Brazil against impeachment.

Can we say “future political career”?

March 22 The Supreme Court removes Judge Moro from Lula’s case to review his decision to release the recorded conversation. The Supreme Court will now oversee the investigation against Lula. Oh well, he can console himself with the fact people are wearing his face on t-shirts.

March 29 PMDB, the largest party in PT’s coalition, drops out and pledges to support Dilma’s impeachment. PMDB is also the party of Vice President Michel Temer, so things got super awkward at the Presidential Palace.

April 11 The Commission to the consider Dilma’s impeachment votes 38-27 in favor of impeachment. The question will now be to a vote by the Full House of Deputies. Fun Fact: Of the 65 members on the Impeachment Commission, 37 are facing criminal charges themselves. I think the vote concluded with a Deputy ironically shouting “If we burn, you burn with us!”

April 13 President Dilma publicly accuses Vice President Temer of conspiring against her.

April 17 The House of Deputies votes 367 – 137 in favor of impeachment, more than securing the two-thirds majority needed to pass.

And that brings us to today. The Senate has until May 11 to vote on the issue and simple majority is enough to suspend Dilma and start a trial.

A lot of people celebrated after the impeachment, but despite the anger and disappointment with Dilma’s administration support for impeachment is at 61%. A majority but not the super majority you might expect given Dilma’s 10% approval rating.

Ideally, the only question would be “Did Dilma commit a crime by using state bank funds to make government payments?” and a trial in the Senate would answer that question. Of course, nothing happening in Brazil at the moment is ideal except maybe for vendors of inflatable Lula dolls in prison stripes.

The reason many people have no faith in the current government but don’t support impeachment is because everyone else in line to be president is way WORSE than Dilma. Let’s go through the line of succession.

Temer during the impeachment vote. He seems very cheerful. He’d probably manage to stay positive while stabbing you in the back.

Vice President Temer is also under investigation and facing impeachment charges. He was named in Senator Amaral’s testimony for participating in an illegal ethanol purchasing scheme. His wife is 43 years younger than he is and has his name tattooed on the nape of her neck which I know is not a crime and and I shouldn’t judge but…ick.

Eduardo Cunha, the guy who led the charge for impeachment, is under indictment for taking as much as $40 million in bribes and faces 184 years in prison. He’s also known for aggressively pushing anti-choice legislation and tweeting bible verses. “And Jesus said, ‘Get while the getting’s good’.” Temer has already expressed support for Cunha and said he won’t ask Cunha to step down. Bros before the rule of law, amiright?

Third in line for president is the Senate leader, Renan Calheiros, who is also under investigation for corruption. Among the seven charges the Supreme Court is considering against him are accepting $600,000 to stop a Senate probe into the Lava Jato case and receiving $1.7 million in bribes for a drilling contract.

I think there’s one maid working at the Presidential Palace who isn’t likely to be in jail within the year. Maybe they could offer her the job?

Brazilians are facing a very tough choice in deciding between pro and anti impeachment. Did President Dilma commit a crime worthy of losing office and even if she did…do we give power to lying, hypocritical assholes? Who do you pick when everyone is a criminal?

Some commentators say Brazilians are being duped by a media controlled by that historically entrenched elite. They argue leaders pushing for impeachment are far more corrupt and will hault the Lava Jato once back in power. While it’s true the media here is extremely conservative both politically and socially, I think it’s a pretty patronizing view of the Brazilian people to think more than 60% of the country has been fooled by a handful of smarmy, rich guys. First, Dilma’s government did engage in some shady accounting and as for the Lava Jato case, she’s either guilty or incredibly incompetent. Nobody’s impeaching a saint. Second, from what I personally have seen and read from those in favor of impeachment believe removing Dilma is only the first step, not the last, in rooting out corruption in the government.

Still, it seems unlikely Congress is going to keep impeaching presidents until they get to the President of the Supreme Court, so removing Dilma just puts someone as guilty but more conservative in power who’s likely to stay there. For those against the impeachment, there’s nothing but a line of criminally indicted men from the economic elite pushing Dilma off a cliff. And she’s not even being impeached due to corruption. She’s being impeached for dubious accounting and to those against impeachment, it’s a purely political move.

Enough corruption!

One thing is absolutely clear, no one in Brasilia is removing themselves power. The only thing they all agree on is that they did nothing wrong. If this were Japan, a third of Congress would have committed suicide by now, but alas we’re in Brazil and once elected to office a person becomes immune to shame. They used to be immune from consequences too, but that seems to be finally changing. That’s one thing, at least, Brazilians can be proud of.
April 26, 2016
A Tropical Paradise is a Sweaty Paradise

Today was another sunny, blue-sky day here in Vitoria. A breeze blowing through my apartment forced me to stop the doors with various colored flipflops. By late afternoon, I’d been enjoying the weather so much, I was compelled to look up the temperature. What numeric value can I assign to this lovely afternoon.

84℉ (28.9℃) And feels like 91℉ (32.8℃)

Oh, yes. So much nicer. I knew it had to be cooler today because the sweat was only beading and not trickling down my back.

It’s hot this year. So hot. We’re almost a month into fall, and I’m still leaving thigh-shaped pools of sweat on every chair I sit in. I haven’t had to pee since January. All liquid just gushes out my pores. Within a half an hour of waking up and leaving the air-conditioned bedroom for the naturally breeze-cooled den, I have sweat stains along my breast bone, and the only exertion I’ve had is lifting a piece of peanut butter toast.

Of course I married a man who doesn’t have pores and could wear the same shirt to the gym everyday for a week without any lingering odor. He doesn’t. But he could. Meanwhile, I look like I jumped in a pool. Whenever I complain, my husband shakes his head and insists “Your body is more efficient at cooling itself than mine.” (Life Lesson: If you find a man who can turn being a sweaty mess into a compliment, marry him.) I reapply deodorant two time a day minimum, and I can still smell myself at the end of the day.

But seriously without any hyperbole, I can’t remember a day I wasn’t actively sweating in Vitoria. There might have been one cool day last September, but definitely by October, I was dripping sweat trying to cut cookie dough in a ninety degrees kitchen. A secondary perk to annual Christmas visit to Atlanta is we get to miss a month of summer heat in Vitoria. Although, it’s feeling less like summer heat and more like pretty-much-all-year-long heat. For anyone still on the fence about global warming, I have a guest room with only an old window unit AC that you’re welcome to sleep in. If you can make it through breakfast the next morning without complaining about the heat, I’ll paint Drill Baby Drill on my kid’s bedroom wall.

The heat’s not just in Vitoria. On February 27, Rio had a record breaking high of 106.5℉ (41.4℃) with a heat index of 119.5℉ (48.6℃). What?!!! I’m so glad we left Rio.

Just imagine if that’s the temperature you have to go to work in. You’re not on vacation. You can’t just camp out at a pool with a swim up bar. You have to get dressed, maybe in a suit, maybe with a lab coat, maybe a uniform that requires pants. You have to go work now. Remember the worst traffic or school drop-off run you’ve ever experienced, now imagine it happening at 120℉. And without air conditioning. Many buses in Rio don’t have air conditioning.

Actually, central AC is rare and reserved mostly for tourists. We don’t have it at home. The top tier private school I worked for didn’t have it. My bank doesn’t have it. What we use here are individual units, and the top of line can effectively turn a classroom into a freezer. Just don’t be the first one to show up and have to turn them on. And of course they break. And if you wake up in the middle of night in a puddle of sweat and the clock blinking, don’t worry. All the thousands of bedroom unit ACs just overwhelmed the grid and caused a blackout.

So if you are planning a trip to Brazil for this time of year, bring a flashlight, lots of sunscreen, and a half dozen sticks of deodorant. That should last you about a week.

April 11, 2016
The World’s Pickiest Beachgoers

Last Saturday, the whole Barineau-Mauricio clan (all three of us) seized the day early (like 10ish) and headed to the beach. It was the kind of day that gets recorded and replayed in every tourist advertisement for the next decade. The temperature was perfect, warm enough to sit comfortably in a bathing suit but not oppressively hot. There was a steady breeze that my husband and daughter exploited for kite flying. It was a perfect beach day.

There were two other families on the beach.

I’m not exaggerating. This is not hyperbole. When we arrived there were two families camped out close to the boardwalk. The next closest people we could see were colorful ants. We looked around in dismay for any food vendor. We’d been banking on supplementing my daughter’s meager breakfast with an ear of corn, but the beach was empty.

Now, before people start shipping furniture and arranging to have their pensions deposited in Brazil, empty beaches are not typical in Brazil, especially not around the cities. Typically, they’re packed so densely you can’t stretch your legs out without kicking the back of someone’s chair. (True story. It was a summer day at Iriri in Espirito Santo. Worst beach day ever!) In Rio de Janeiro, you can’t find a beach with less than a few thousand people on it. Drive past Ipanema on a Tuesday, and you’ll wonder who’s running the city.

That’s not the case here in Vitoria. The empty beaches were one of the biggest shocks moving from Rio to Vitoria. I kept trying to find some explanation. Are Vitoria’s beaches more polluted than Rio’s? Are they more violent? Is there a vicious rip current? A Kraken? Where the hell is everybody?!

After living in Vitoria for almost six years, I’ve figured it out. Capixabas are simply the pickiest beach goers in the world.

Capixaba is the Brazilian term for a person born in Vitoria, the state capital of Espirito Santo. The best English equivalent would be North Carolinian. That state has picturesque mountains and beaches and a generally more conservative population that goes regularly to church and the salon.

Capixabas are incredibly picky about their beach trips. Here are 7 reasons why Capixabas won’t go to the beach.

1. The temperature has dropped below 80°F (26.5°C). If there’s one thing Capixabas fear more than visiting Rio de Janeiro, it’s cold weather. And any temperature in which you can comfortably wear long sleeves is cold. In winter when the high is around 75°F (24°C), my kid will be one of three students whose parents are still allowing them in the pool. Those other all kids have parents from Rio Grande do Sul, the state that’s so far south it’s basically Uruguay.

2. It’s Saturday. Sunday is beach day. Obviously.

3. It rained yesterday. Everything will be wet. And the water will be too cold.

4. It might rain today. Everything will get wet. And to pack everything up and walk across the street only to get rained on would be such a pain.

5. Those clouds are kind of dark. It’s probably going to be chilly with all the clouds. The wind is picking up. It might rain. Better just to wait for a day with no clouds. It’s going to be too cold today anyway.

6. We went to the beach yesterday. If we want to go to the beach everyday we’ll go to a hotel or to our family’s beach house in Guarapari. The beaches in Vitoria are mostly decorative. You can’t use them too much, or they’ll break.

7. It’s too empty. There just aren’t enough people to feel safe. This is the one reason I agree with. The rate of violent crime in Espirito Santo is a tragedy. It’s why we’ve never considered buying a house near the beach even though we go every weekend. I’d love to walk along an empty beach early in the morning or a night, but it wouldn’t be safe. On the other hand, I don’t think two hundred people are required to make beach a safe, and the threat of robbery certainly doesn’t stop people in Rio from swarming Copacabana.

Most excuses are weather related. I assume most Capixabas believe English beaches to be fatal, and I’m not going to try dissuade anyone from that thinking. Mostly because Capixabas are friendly and obsessively follow traffic rules compared to people in Rio. Because nobody’s perfect. But mostly because this way my family and I have the beaches to ourselves from June through September.

Have I missed any excuses, Capixaba friends and readers? Am I totally and completely off-base?

March 21, 2016
My Bilingual Kid Doesn’t Want Your Attention

Having spent the majority of my adult life outside of the United States (mostly in small, homogeneous cities), I’ve gotten used to being the subject of conversation at the next table over. It happens pretty frequently in Vitoria. My husband and I speak in English so people assume I don’t understand their Portuguese freeing them to openly discuss me from two feet away. It happens most frequently with kids and teens, but a surprising number of adults don’t seem to realize that a person could understand both English and Portuguese. In Vitoria, we expats are like endangered wildlife. People know we’re around, but when actually spotted, locals take note.

I don’t mind. Until visitors arrive from another planet, one from another continent is about as alien as it gets for most people in Vitoria. I signed up for the attention when I decided to become an expat.

But my daughter didn’t.

A series of encounters at the park Sunday has, for the first time, made me consider my daughter’s multiculturalism a challenge, a thing she’ll have to learn to deal with.

It also has me weighing the importance of three influences on my daughter’s behavior: my parenting instincts v. my daughter’s personality v. the culture she is growing up in. I’m now asking which of these should win out in the event they’re incompatible.

Here’s what happened.

We arrived at the park just as a craft was beginning and hurried to the classroom. As materials were being handed out, one of the helpers overheard me speaking English and asked where we’re from. I answered, heard about how he’s going to Disney World soon, and then got the VIP crafting upgrade, as he hovered over my shoulder for the duration of the activity asking repeatedly (in English) if my daughter needed help. He was pleasant and wanted to practice his English. No problem.

Then we moved to the playground and while my daughter, the baby dragon, sought refuge in a playhouse from me, the evil sorceress, a girl and boy asked what language we were speaking. I answered, their eyes widened, and they ran off. A few minutes later they were back with more friends who all crowded into the playhouse to stare at my four-year-old, English speaker. My daughter tried to play with them in Portuguese, but the older girl turned to her friends and asked, “Who wants to learn English?” My daughter was not interested in playing teacher when there was sorceress to escape from, so she turned her back on them. They were kids and curious. Ok.

The most bizarre exchange happened as my daughter and I were waiting for my husband to bring the car. We were sword fighting with sticks, so I have no idea what these people heard exactly. “Argh!” “Ah, my leg! I’m bleeding!” But whatever they heard prompted the man to turn to his friend and say “Uma italiana!” I know I opened the door to this exchange by correcting him, but I can’t live in a world where people hear an English speaking American and think Italian.

I smiled and told him “Sou americana.” Their minds were blown. The woman nearly doubled-over laughing and the man’s eyes bugged out as if this was the first time either of them had considered the possibility of a person speaking more than one language. If I had turned invisible, I think they would have been less surprised. The woman sat down on the bench next to my daughter, and the two of them began peppering us with questions, the most notable one being “So you speak Portuguese & French?” They quickly zeroed in on my daughter and began directing their questions to her, clearly not believing she speaks Portuguese and is, in fact, Brazilian. When they asked her for her name, I stiffened. When they asked her for her daddy’s name, I cut them off, said “ciao” and in their wake, made it explicitly clear she was never to give her name or mommy’s or daddy’s name to anyone other than a police officer. The couple hadn’t meant but did cross a line when they asked for personal information from my kid.

My daughter’s final audience of the day came at the end of lunch. She and I were walking back to our table with a much-anticipated chocolate popsicle, and the table next to us began exclaiming to my husband. “Nossa que olhos lindas! Uma loirinha linda!” My daughter has blond hair and blue eyes, the genetic jackpot in Brazil. The entire family at the next table gushed compliments, while my husband played along and joked it was a good thing she took after her mom.

This all happened within two hours. Nothing was said or done out of malice. The people’s motivation ranged from innocent curiosity to sincere appreciation with a heavy dash of racism. Everything interaction was typical. Brazilian culture is open and friendly and community oriented. Strangers talk to each other here. It’s like being in South Georgia without the gnats and shotguns.

But my daughter doesn’t want an audience. My husband and have noticed it. Her teachers noted it in her school report. When the group of kids crowded around my daughter asking her to speak in English, she went silent. When the geographically challenged couple asked for her name, she clutched my arm and hid her face. My daughter doesn’t like being put on the spot. And that is exactly what every stranger who asks her to demonstrate her Portuguese or English is doing. When strangers stare at my daughter, they turn her into a spectacle no matter their intentions.

So what to do about it?

My husband immediately suggested we stop speaking English outside of the apartment. This would eliminate having to always explain that my kid is Brazilian and hearing about people’s Disney vacations, but I’m against it. My daughter is immersed in Portuguese Monday through Friday all day long at school. She needs as much English as possible on the weekend. We’d also limit her English vocabulary to the world of our apartment.

My gut reaction is to tell the spectators, politely but firmly, to go away. I’ll explain that my daughter is shy and since she is Brazilian, we don’t want her to feel singled out in her home. Please, save your questions for another bilingual who’s more comfortable in the spotlight.

The problem with this solution is that it’s extremely American. Like off the charts individualistic. Walls up. Family in. Strangers out. It’s honest. It’s blunt. It’s clear. It’s rude as hell. It’s all of those things. Just depends on your cultural reference. I recently saw an article titled “I Don’t Make My Kid Share” and thought that would never fly in Brazil. Valuing individual property rights over communal harmony would brand you and your kid the biggest jerks on the playground. Not all parenting strategies work equally well in all cultures.

She is Brazilian, living in Brazil, dealing with Brazilians. Shouldn’t I do my best to teach her to understand and navigate her own culture? Is it right to protect her feelings by shutting down people in a culture where small talk is viewed as courteous? Doesn’t she need to be able to cope with the extra attention if it’s going to be part of her reality?

I want to help my daughter balance culture and her personality, and I’m not sure what to say to prepare her for the inevitable questions that come when you are the only one. I grew up a solid member of the majority in everyway possible, but she is often usually the only bilingual, the only American. A little, blue-eyed, Brazilian girl speaking English here in Vitoria is going to make people stop in their tracks and comment.

My plan so far is to tell her she should never talk to strangers without mommy and daddy around. (Safety first.) When we are around, she has an absolute right to remain silent. She doesn’t have to play with or talk to anyone she doesn’t want to. However, I’ll explain people aren’t trying to be mean. They want to learn, and she has the power to teach them. People are curious about her languages and cultures, so when she’s ready, people will be very interested in what she has to say.

And that’s the best idea I’ve got for now.

December 1, 2015
5 Ways to Improve Christmas in Brazil
We put our Christmas decorations up this past weekend. This is the first year my daughter has really anticipated decorating and, more or less, helped in the process. She’s very proud of her Christmas decorations, and so am I. They are minimal but were hung with Christmas spirit. And a lot of sweat. Probably more sweat than Christmas spirit for my part.

That’s the problem with Christmas in Brazil. It’s hot. It’s humid. It is decidedly un-Christmasy. At least for someone who grew up spending Christmas a good bit north of the equator.

I tried to recreate my tree decorating memories for my daughter. We had Christmas carols playing. We pulled out the Christmas books and read Rudolph. But everytime I had to stop and rehydrate, the pleas to “Let it Snow” felt more like a cruel joke than an endearing tradition. Not that I’ve ever had a white Christmas in Atlanta, but it’s at least cold enough to necessitate pants.

I can’t shake this feeling that I’m faking Christmas and it’s not just because I’m importing my foreign Christmas culture. Brazil has already imported 90 percent of American & European Christmas traditions. The malls pipe in instrumental versions of American carols, and shop windows are filled with fake evergreens decked out in red, green, and sprayed on snow. Apartment buildings string lights in the shape of icicles and poor Santa greets kids in fur-trimmed, red velvet.

What feels so wrong about Christmas in Brazil is the juxtaposition between Northern hemisphere customs and Southern hemisphere weather. In order to make the season feel more authentic, I’ve got a few suggestions for improving Christmas in Brazil.

5 Way to Improve Christmas in Brazil

This was in October. December is hotter.
1. Put Santa in Board Shorts For his own sake, at the very least. It’s also hard for a parent to explain Santa’s velvet uniform to a kid running around in her underwear. “Yes, it’s very hot here, but Santa is magic and can maintain a constant body temperate even when wrapped in fur under the sun in 98 degrees.” How about some window decals of Santa strolling down the beach in board shorts pulling his sack along on a boogy board.
2. Carols About Sand, Not Snow “Oh the weather outside’s delightful. And the barbecue’s left me quite full. Laying out that’s my plan, In the sand, in the sand, in the sand.” They could also be more local. I think the world needs some Bossa Nova Christmas. “Gifts and fun and family and sunshine. Good will to all, good cheer we keep in mind. We’ll raise some glasses, attend some masses and dine.”
3. Replace Red & Green with Yellow & Blue Look in the store windows and you’ll see red and green wreathes, ornaments, figurines, dinner ware. These colors are too dark and heavy for a place that’s got sunlight until 8pm followed by balmy evenings with temps in the 80s. Christmas in Brazil should be bright and bold. It should be swirled on a sarong that you wear over tanned (or in my case sunburned) legs. I propose Christmas decorations in yellow, for the intense sun, and blue, for the ocean that everyone is visiting on their summer vacations.
4. Exchange Santa’s Sleigh for a VW Bug What good is a sleigh going to be in a tropical rainforest? Or on the sandy coast? Or the sertão, the arid grasslands? No good at all. For a truly Brazilian ride, give Santa a VW Beetle from the 70s pulled by a team of flying capybara. (Someone please draw and post that image!) I’ve seen old Beetles driving around every city I’ve visited in Brazil. Those cars can run forever in any environment. Santa can land in Caracas, send his team of reindeer back to the North Pole with the sleigh, and pick up his Beetle to continue distributing presents in South America.
5. Christmas Palm Trees First, we need to burn all the artificial evergreens that been assembled around Brazil. Most of them are probably made by children in Bangladesh with toxic chemicals. One thing Brazil is not short on is vegetation. No more cheap, fake fir trees. Let’s decorate little potted palms. It’d be a hundred times easier to wrap light around a palm tree. There wouldn’t be room for quite as many ornaments, but I can make sacrifices.
Rabanada. Mmmmmm!

I have no complaints about Christmas dishes. Nuts, pineapple, figs, codfish, ham, and lots more fruit. These are all things I can support. And rabanada. Especially the rabanada! It’s like french toast on steroids. It’s amazing and one Brazilian tradition I’ll be taking back to the US with me.

It’ll be my addition to the dessert table. When else wold you serve bread dipped in egg and covered with cinnamon and powdered sugar? At breakfast?
November 23, 2015
5 Things That Can Ruin a Kid’s Day (& the Parent’s as Well)
Saturday morning my kid woke up asking for sausage. She’s Brazilian, so it’s a pretty common request. She’s a very picky eater, so if she demonstrates enthusiasm for any food that isn’t made by Hershey, we try to accommodate her request. That’s how we ended up at a packed churrasco (a restaurant serving heart-stopping quantities of grilled meat) swarming with sweaty, screaming families and their kids. In other words, hell. The kids all seemed to love it.

Why wouldn’t they? This place was family-friendly in a very Brazilian way with a multi-level playground, 2 trampolines, five TVs with Playstations, and a small amusement park ride. Any American actuary would stroke out upon entering this restaurant.

The kids were dying of happiness.

All except my kid.

We got there early enough to grab a coveted table in front of the entrance to the play area. It was the most chaotic spot in the place, but we’d be able to see my daughter from our table. We ordered her sausage and beef and french fries. My husband the vegetarian contented himself with rice and beans. She thanked us by whining, complaining, and pouting the entire time.

There was a Claw-crane arcade game right in front of our table, and up against the glass was a stuffed cheetah. Game over. My daughter was obsessed. Nothing we said could convince her to let it go. The playground, the video games, the carousel of airplanes, the sausage, they were insignificant next to this stuffed cheetah. She left the restaurant crying. I left with a burning desire for a sledge hammer. We were all pissed off for the rest of the afternoon.

My daughter’s day was ruined by a cruelly placed Claw-game. And so was mine. If you don’t have kids, you might not realize how heavily a parent’s mood at the end of the day relies on their child’s emotions. And a kid can be plunged into emotional turmoil over a sock. Yes, I’ve had mornings or entire days that were corrupted by a sock.

The Claw is just another in a long stream of innocuous things which have completely ruined my day. Here are five more items and tasks I now face with trepidation.
1. Basic Personal Hygiene Specifically, the maintenance of it. Five years ago, brushing teeth or hair didn’t consume a lot of mental energy. A bath was welcome especially in the scorching summers of Rio. Now, I mentally steel myself using techniques I learned from Navy Seals before approaching my child with either soap or a toothbrush. Many a morning or evening has been ruined by screaming refusals to use either.
2. A Pair of Wonder Woman Undies A very special pair that is never, never clean when requested.
3. Chocolate Ice-cream Normally a curative for emotional collapse. Unless it doesn’t have the option of M&M toppings. We don’t go to that ice-cream store anymore.
4. An Inflatable Pterodactyl One that was made so cheaply and with such indifference nobody noticed one of the wings was glued on backwards. It came in a package of six and was never played with after being opened. The toy had no impact on our lives whatsoever, until it was given away then demanded inexplicably a few months later. Now, it will never be forgotten.
5. A Slice of Carrot Vegetables in general, but carrots have the greatest potential for being nibbled so this is the one that usually brings everyone to arms. There was a memorable night out when my daughter sat on the floor under the table screaming with snot running down her face because I demanded she have one bite of carrot. Wait…no. It wasn’t carrot. It was a bite of macaroni and cheese. Which I’m now willing to consider a vegetable. One that she won’t eat. That’s where we are on the vegetable front.
It will be a very long time before my husband and I are willing to go back to that restaurant. Which is unfortunate because the number of places we now feel that way about includes pretty much everywhere with the exception of the ice cream store with M&Ms for toppings. I’m actually fine with that.
November 9, 2015
Throwing a Brazilian Halloween Party: An Odyssey of Prep

I threw a Halloween party for fifteen preschoolers last Saturday. It was a huge success, but I feel I owe my guests an apology.

Multiple parents came up to me and said I was “muito animada”, a very fun-loving, party-throwing person. I realized that by throwing a fun children’s party, I had completely misrepresented myself to them. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lie. The fact is I’m not a creative, crafty mom who saves egg cartons to make earthworm condos for the compost pile. My perfect Sunday afternoon is sitting quietly with a good a book and cup of coffee. Ideally on the beach and without people unable to wipe their own bottoms.

So why did I throw a class Halloween party?

Because they don’t traditionally celebrate Halloween in Brazil. I loved Halloween as a kid, and if I don’t throw the party, my Brazilian daughter won’t know one of my favorite childhood traditions.

Why did I make such an effort on the crafts and decorations?

Because the day after I announced my intention to have a party, one of the moms came up to me at school and told me she’d always dreamed of going to a real Halloween party. To which I thought “Oh crap! I’m fulfilling someone’s dream of Halloween? I don’t want that kind of responsibility!” But I accepted it. And that brings us to the last and really most revealing question.

How was I able to come up with such creative and age-appropriate themed snacks and crafts if I’m not a creative crafty mommy?

I’m an intelligent and highly-organized, type-A personality with access to the Internet and a working knowledge of Pinterest. That’s it. That’s the real me. If I take on the responsibility of a project, it will be done well. Even if it’s something I usually avoid.

Like baking.

Let me tell you about the cookie baking.

While in Atlanta in August, I found Halloween themed cookie cutters and decorating supplies. Bat, ghost, and pumpkin cutters. Black, orange, and green slime icing. The kids could decorate cookies! It would be awesome.

I knew I was going to have to make the dough from scratch. Shortly after arriving in Brazil, I tried to bake a pecan pie for reasons again related to culture sharing. I asked my husband where I could buy the crust. He stared at me brow furrowed. “Buy the crust? You mean the ingredients?” I laughed. Ha. Ha. Good joke. I’m not making my crust from scratch. Not even my South-Georgia raised, preserve-making grandmother makes her own crust anymore. Nobody does. “Uh, they do in Brazil.” Oh.

So I knew I was going to have to make sugar cookie dough from scratch and having baked maybe four times in my life, I knew I’d need a practice run. I planned out every day of the week leading up to the party. Saturday I went online and found a simple and well-rated sugar cookie recipe. Sunday I bought the ingredients. Tuesday was the baking run-through.

After my experience with the pie crust, I brought measuring cups back from the US because I’d learned I’m a victim of the US education system and can’t think in metric. Also, the Brazilian versions of recipes often call for “tea cups” which is not a standardized form of measurement! I find baking stressful enough without vague instructions, so American measurements and tools it is.

Recipe. Ingredients. Measuring cups and spoons. I thought I was prepared.

Preheat the oven to 350 F. My oven only has a line decreasing in thickness and the numbers 1 through 5, but my plan was to pick a number and once the first batch was in check them every minute and figure out the right amount of time at that setting. First problem solved.

Mix dry ingredients. Easy.

Cream butter and sugar. That’s when I realized I had a handheld beater with no beaters. They had been lost somewhere between a school project and kitchen renovation. Ok. People were obviously baking before electricity, so I decided to mix by hand. If I had known I would be creaming butter three times in a week, I would have gone out and bought a damn beater right then. But I didn’t.

Fifteen minutes and two sore arms later…mix in dry ingredients.

Two quivering arms and one sore back later…put dough on cookie sheet. Looking at the dough, I could tell using the cutters was out the question. The dough stuck to everything. I could have wallpapered with it. I went ahead and baked globs of it to test the flavor but knew I was going to have to address the stickiness.

One minute of internet research later, I’d learned the dough must be refrigerated for at least an hour before attempting to cut out cookies. Great! I had learned a valuable lesson. This is why test runs are important.

Friday morning I made the dough for a second time, breaking a sweat mixing by hand. I left it in the fridge all afternoon. I was going to bake the cookies after my daughter was asleep, but on a whim I decided to do one batch before I picked her up from school.

Within minutes I learned that firm dough doesn’t stay that way for long in an 85 degree kitchen. Central air conditioning in the kitchen would have been a big help, but I shrugged it off. People baked without air conditioning for most of human history. No big deal. I simply raced, hunched over my kitchen table, to roll out, cut, and dump cookies onto to the baking tray before the dough softened into a gooey mess.

I put cats, bats, and witches’ hats into oven and pulled out 8 amoebas. Son of a bitch.

I collapsed in a chair. Beads of sweat dripped down my back and forehead. My shoulders ached. And the prospect of mixing another batch of dough by hand loomed before me and crushed my soul.

I hate cooking. No matter how much I research and prepare, I feel I always, always, end up facing a dozen unexpected challenges that keep the results from being perfect. And perfect is the end goal, people. And it should be achievable with good planning and organization. That doesn’t seems to be the case with cooking, which is why I hate it.

The silver lining is that by making that test batch before I picked up my daughter, I was able to swing by the store and get more flour and butter for a third batch. Because I was making the cookies. My daughter had already found the cookie cutters and asked for a cat to decorate. I had brought the icing and spider sprinkles from the United States. I was making those damn cookies.

And by 1:12 a.m I had forty cookies in recognizable shapes.

At the party the next afternoon, a mom asked my husband where I bought the cookies. He told her I had baked them. She exclaimed “Really? Oh, those creative moms.”

That’s why I want to apologize to her and the other moms because I’m not the person the cookies make me out to be. I don’t get a thrill from making my daughter’s birthday cupcakes. I get stress knots above my shoulder blades. I don’t jump at every chance to throw a party. I cringe remembering the mess after the last one. I wish my Portuguese was better, then maybe I could translate my sarcasm when I talk about the joys of crafting.

I may have given my daughter wonderful Halloween memories and successfully represented a piece of my culture abroad, but I misrepresented myself in the process.

Which could be true for a lot party hosts. Maybe behind every Pinterest image, there’s a sweaty person popping painkillers and muttering obscenities at a tray of cookies.

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November 3, 2015
I Gave My Daughter a Dinosaur

It all started when the Littlest Pet army wanted to steal Polly Pocket’s kitty.

In her desperation, Polly called on her big sister, Wonder Woman, to defend her from the oncoming hoard of Littlest Pets. Wonder Woman joined the battle, the tide seemed to turn, but the Littlest Pets called on their Pteranodon freed from Jurassic World for air support. Wonder Woman countered by summoning her dragon, Storm Fly, and together they defended Polly and her pets from the Pteranodon. The battle raged. A pink poodle was decapitated. Then everyone stopped to have dinner.

I’ve clearly screwed up my daughter.

I should have realize it sooner, but it only became clear as I separated the earth-toned reptiles from the candy-colored pets. My daughter is terribly confused, and I have only myself to blame.

I should never have put both super heroes and Polly Pockets in the same playroom. I wasn’t thinking. She’s a girl. It’s not enough that she likes Littlest Pets and Polly Pocket; she must like only Littlest Pets and Polly Pockets. By acting out “Polly has a new pet kitty” and “Epic Battle to the death”, I have no idea what label to ascribe to her. Tomboy? Animal lover? Warrior? Caretaker? What is she?!

If I’m confused, I can only imagine everyone else in her life. How are people supposed to know what present to get her when she’ll play with anything? I can’t ask friends and family to walk down more than one aisle at the toy store.

Also I don’t think these toys can be used together safely. Thomas the Train’s wheels might fall off if he has to pull the Littlest Pets. What if Elsa’s dress gets glitter on the Pteranodon? Dinosaurs that were bred in a lab from DNA preserved in prehistoric mosquitoes weren’t meant to be covered in glitter. Neither are the toys inspired by them. The glitter will probably erode the wings off. I’m worried Batman might combust if he’s made to ride a My Little Pony.

The effects of this cross-play on the toys themselves are actually minor concerns compared to the effects on my daughter. If I had only stuck to tea sets, maybe she wouldn’t insist on climbing the bookshelves. Or leaping off the bed. Or running. Or moving. She would have learned that girls are supposed to sit quietly for long periods of time. If I’d limited her to baby dolls, she would have learned that changing diapers is an important part of care for infants handled exclusively by females. As such, girls aren’t supposed to find poop funny. Human waste management is a serious responsibility and constantly imagining your stuffed animals pooping on your mom’s head is NOT hilarious.

I definitely haven’t bought her enough Barbies. She’s still willing to leave the house with her hair unbrushed. If I hadn’t diluted the effects of the Barbies and princesses by including some super heroes, she’d be obsessed with accessories by now. As it is, she only wants to wear a crown some of the time not all of the time. Since she doesn’t have pierced ears, how are people supposed to know she’s a girl without a tiara and perfectly styled hair?

Allowing all the violent play was another mistake. That battle the Littlest Pets engaged in was brutal and not girly at all. Parenting fail. I bought the swords and shields. My husband and I read her illustrated Greek myths that referenced the Trojan War. We were forcing her to go against her nature when I taught her how to make a fist and my husband recalled his fencing days to teach her to properly thrust and parry. We should have known that having to set the rule “You cannot actually touch anyone when pretending to fight” was an indication our daughter’s development had gone off track.

It doesn’t matter that no scientific evidence has linked war play in kids to aggression in adults. I’m sure that’s only true for boys. A girl playing war is just unnatural. No girl in history has ever wanted to punch something. Girls don’t feel frustration and anger or desire to be powerful and heroic. They only ever want to rock babies, cook dinner, dress dolls, and put someone else’s needs ahead of their own. All girls. All of the time.

As every clothing, toy, and book store here in Vitoria make clear, girls are all the same by nature. So I can only assume my husband and I are to blame for my daughter being different.

I was still reeling from this disturbing revelation when my daughter announced her choice of Halloween costume. She wants to be a knight riding a flying unicorn.

“Like the man and his flying horse,” she said.

“What man?” I said confused. “You mean Bellerophon and Pegasus?!”

“Yes, like Beliphon.”

Great. On top of everything else, we’ve turned her into a nerd.

October 19, 2015
Why Doesn’t Anyone Know a Thing About Brazil?
There’s a famous comedy sketch in Brazil that features a home invasion with the owner held at gunpoint. The masked assailant aims at the owner and barks “Name the major tributaries on the left bank of the Amazon River!” The owner rattles off several rivers in rapid succession. The bad guy immediately lowers his gun and leaves taking nothing. The homeowner stands, exhales and says “I knew that information would be useful some day.”

Every country has its own “tributaries of the Amazon”. I had all fifty US state capitols memorized for most of fourth grade then never again. Why would I retain the capital of Wyoming? The world’s a big place and geography is only one of many subjects to master. With a background in international relations, I know where Brunei is but nothing about computer coding. That’s why I won’t judge someone for not being able to place Sri Lanka or name the capital of Azerbaijan, unless that person is on the Senate Foreign Relations committee.

But Brazil is not Sri Lanka.

Brazil is not a tiny country with a tiny population and a tiny economy. It’s a huge country with a massive economy but still nobody in the US knows anything about it. The average American knows people speak Arabic in Tunisia and Spanish in Argentina, but ask her about Brazil and she hesitates. People generally know India is important in the global economy but what does Brazil produces exactly? Mention Guatemala, Korea, or Sweden and most Americans will imagine someone with a particular phenotype. What do you think of when you hear “Brazilian”?

Several years ago, I was visiting my parents in Atlanta and I read an article in the neighborhood newsletter about a recent mugging in the area. The victim gave a helpful warning to other residents to be on the lookout for someone who looked “Brazilian”. Whaaaat?!!! The only less helpful description would be to describe that attacker as a Homo sapien.

The most upsetting fact was that my parents live in a highly educated neighborhood and still “Brazilian” was published as a helpful description of a person. Even these people wallpapering in college diplomas didn’t know the most basic things about Brazil, like the fact a Brazilian can have ancestry from anywhere.

And there really is no excuse for it.

Brazil has the seventh largest GDP in the world. It’s economy is larger than India, Russia, Korea, or Canada and that was coming off of a bad year. At roughly 206,000 million people, Brazil has the fifth largest population in the world. There are more Brazilians than Japanese, Germans, or Mexicans. Globally speaking, it’s pretty common to be born in Brazil. Brazil is also the fifth largest country in terms of land area. It’s bigger than Australia. In terms of exports, Brazil is the US’s seventh best customer ahead of France or India.

I’ll admit a pro-Brazil bias given that my husband and daughter are both Brazilian, but knowing what I do now, I’m embarrassed by my pre-husband ignorance of Brazil. I’d like to spare others my embarrassment, so here are five basic facts every person should know about Brazil.
1. Language Brazilians speak Portuguese! Brazil is the largest country in South America and the official language is Portuguese, not Spanish.
2. Capital City The capital is Brasilia. The largest city in terms of population and economy is São Paulo. Rio de Janeiro was the capital from 1763 until 1960, which is why it’s the most frequently given wrong answer to the capital of Brazil question.
3. Type of Government Brazil is a democracy and it’s not just a part of the country’s name that is never actually lived up to. Brazil transitioned to a constitutional democracy in 1988 after 30 years of a military dictatorship. Brazil stabilized and entrenched the new constitution in less than a decade, which is amazing considering it takes that long to get a pothole fixed here. Currently President Dilma’s approval rating is 8% and people are demanding an impeachment. Not a revolution. Not a military invasion of the President’s mansion. Literally the entire country despises the current government, but the people want to work within the rule of law. Bravo Brazil! You guys can express your absolute and unified hatred of the current government within the confines of the constitution. Well done!
4. Economy Really, really terrible at the moment. So, uh, let’s just talk about exports. What does Brazil produce? The top five exports are iron ore, crude petroleum, soy beans, raw sugar, and…any guesses? Poultry. Nobody, not even my Brazilian high school students, ever guesses chickens.
5. Fun Fact To Impress Friends Brazil has been a colony, a monarchy, a dictatorship, a military dictatorship, and a republic. Name a type of government and Brazil has tried it. The country celebrates two independence days. The first on September 7 celebrates independence from Portugal and the second is on November 15 when Brazil transitioned from monarchy to republic in 1889.
I hope people’s general awareness about the country improves before we move out of Brazil and my daughter is expected to play the role of walking Wikipedia article on the country. What language do they speak is a really boring question to repeatedly answer.

After all, Brazil is not a tributary on the left bank of the Amazon or the capitol of Wyoming. It’s so much more important. But not many people know that.
September 28, 2015