Brynn Barineau

Tag: expat life

  • Brynn Is Not In Brazil

    Brynn Is Not In Brazil

    Hi. So…it’s been a minute. I’d ask how you’ve been the last few years, but I don’t think I could take an honest answer. You’ve either been like me. You’re barely keeping it together and looking in the mirror has been like watching a time elapsed video covering a few decades. Or you’ve managed to thrive and find yourself in adversity in which case, I assume you own a supply chain software company and I don’t want to hear that shit either

    But it’s January 2022 and I’m ready to confidently say I feel like myself again, albeit with thinner hair and a thicker waist.

    What have I been up to? Not writing blog posts obviously. You’d think a writer would process events through writing but whenever I did sit down to write, it felt like someone had taken a shotgun to my attention span. I got fragments of ideas, slivers of thoughts. Piecing together anything sensible, let alone enjoyable, was painful and tedious.

    I’ve over the last 18 months most of my energy has gone to building a life from scratch in Atlanta.

    Mercedes Benz Stadium in the ATL. Home to the Falcons, Atlanta United, & mass vaccinations.

    That’s right. Brynn is officially NOT in Brazil! We moved to my hometown of Atlanta in June 2020. Yup. 2020. A transcontinental move with a child in the midst of a global pandemic. And my husband stayed behind in Brazil because job and money. As risky life changing decisions go, we were open to international flights and furniture shopping during a pandemic but drew the line at no one in the house earning an income. We saved that for 2021.

    I’ll write a whole series of posts on moving from Brazil to the US soon. Getting my daughter registered for school was an odyssey in itself. The Dekalb school system is not set up for an English-speaking, foreign born American citizen with a social security number but only Brazilian school transcripts. The automated messages never tell you what number to push for that.

    Moving back to the United States isn’t the only thing that’s happened. We adopted two dogs from a local rescue. I reconnected with friends I hadn’t seen since high school. I started a book club with two of them and joined a writing with another. That group helped me finish a fourth draft of a historical fiction that I started writing for Nanowrimo 2018 and will finally go on submission to editors this year.

    And I sold my first book!!!!!! (Maybe I should have led with that?)

    After years querying and being on submission, I signed with a small idependent publisher, Orange Blossom Publishing to release my historical fiction, Jaguars and Other Game. It will be my debut novel, launching on November 22, 2022. Just in time for my 40th birthday.

    I have high expectations for 2022. I say that despite having been conscious for the last two years. My husband has joined us full time in Atlanta for the next year. We’re together, vaccinated, and I’m going to launch my debut novel.

    There’s a lot happening. A lot has happened. I’ll write about everything. Keep checking in for updates on the publishing process and fun announcements like the cover reveal and pre-order campaigns. I’m so excited to share this process with y’all.

  • Projeto Tamar: Saving Sea Turtles along Brazil’s Coast

    Projeto Tamar: Saving Sea Turtles along Brazil’s Coast

    Hello, adorable baby sea turtle!

    Today is world turtle day! Hooray for the turtles!

    In honor of turtles everywhere, I wanted to give a shout out to one of my favorite places to spend an afternoon in Vitoria: Projeto Tamar.

     

    Projeto Tamar is an NGO working throughout Brazil to study, protect, and rescue sea turtles. The name comes from the Portuguese for sea turtle, tartaruga marinha. Five species of sea turtle nest along Brazil’s coast, and one of Projeto Tamar’s initiatives it to observe and protect their nests. To date, Projeto Tamar has protected more than 25,000,000 baby turtles from egg to ocean. The organization also works with local fishermen to develop alternative methods that reduce the risk of sea turtle death from nets and has facilities up and down Brazil that work to educate the public about sea turtles and their major threats.

     

    They’re so close! Just a little pet…

    One unique skill I’ve developed since moving to Vitoria is sea turtle spotting. I can spot the shiny head of a turtle popping up for a breath in my peripheral vision at high noon without sunglasses. It’s one of the unintended consequences of my expat life. I’ve also become quite the amateur expert on sea turtles thanks to our regular visits to our local Projeto Tamar site. We take my daughter, but I’m the one hovering a little too close to the babies the staff always keep their eyes on. They look just like leaves bobbing in the water. A little touch wouldn’t hurt. I’d only use one finger. I’d be sooooo gentle.

    In honor of turtles everywhere and to show off my sea turtle trivia, here are five facts I’ve learned thanks to Projeto Tamar.

    Fact 1 The sea turtle species that nest along Brazil’s coast are olive ridely, green, hawksbill, loggerhead, and leatherback. The turtles I regularly see in the bay are young green turtles.

    This poor olive ridely was hit by a boat. It was rescued by Projeto Tamar and now gets physical therapy for its front flipper every Monday.

    Fact 2 Over the course of a year, the leatherbacks which nest here will migrate between Brazil and Africa. That is some impressive swimming.

    Fact 3 Most sea turtles lay between 100 – 200 eggs per nest.

    Fact 4 Experts estimate only about 1 in a thousand babies reaches adulthood in natural condition. 1 in a 1,000! Why so few? Well…

    Fact 5 Sea turtles don’t reach maturity until 10-50 years old depending on the species. That’s a long time to try and avoid all the fishermen, boats, and plastic bags masquerading as jellyfish. Odds are against surviving all those threats for five decades. It’s why killing the moms as they’re laying eggs and then harvesting the eggs is so devastating for the species.

    Fortunately in Brazil, Projeto Tamar has worked with local communities to dramatically reduce the hunting of turtles while they lay their eggs. In fact, Projeto Tamar has been working for 37 years, just long enough that they’ve recorded an 87% increase in babies hatched over the last five years compared to the previous five. The first few groups of turtles hatched under the protection of the project are finally old enough to come back and lay eggs of their own.

    And what adorable babies hatch out of the eggs! Someday, I will convince a volunteer to let me hold. Surely out of over 25,000,000, there’s one baby turtle who doesn’t mind being held by a doting human aunt perfectly willing to handle chopped up pieces of fish and squid for feedings. Just for a few seconds?

     

     

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  • A Random Street in Rabat

    A Random Street in Rabat

    This is a flashback to my first published essay! It appeared in 2007 in the now defunct digital magazine Glimpse, a National Geographic Imprint. It’s about the first day of my study abroad program in Rabat, Morocco in Sepetember, 2003. I’m feeling very old now.

    A Random Street in Rabat

    It did not take me long after announcing my study abroad plans to realize that “abroad” for most of the people I knew meant Western Europe or Australia. Any other country was not so much abroad as another planet. The first time I mentioned Morocco to family or friends there was usually a momentary pause as people first, tried to place Morocco on a map, and second tried to figure out why I wanted to spend a significant amount of time there. Australia they could understand. It has beaches and people with funny accents. Italy has pasta and Prada. The only thing Morocco has is a city named after a Humphrey Bogart film.

    While many people didn’t know what countries Morocco borders they did know it is Islamic and predominantly Arab. This was cause for concern among friends and family. Being what one of my professors calls a “good liberal” I believed I was above the negative generalizations many of my friends and family made. When my less open-minded family and friends living sheltered lives in Georgia, asked why I would want to study in a country where I was likely to get assaulted simply for being American, I’d give an exasperated sigh and patiently (maybe ever so condescendingly) explain that “all Arabs are not terrorists and they do not spend their afternoons looking for Americans to beat with sticks.” I scolded my friends for being so ethnocentric as to believe Arabs were inherently more violent than Americans. I prided myself on avoiding the negative stereotyping of Arabs and Muslims many of my friends and family engaged in and as an open-minded, good, liberal, university student I arrived in Casablanca with my program group on September 2, 2003.

    On September 3, I found myself all alone, completely lost, standing on a street corner in Rabat. That was the day of the Drop Off–the morning our program directors piled all 22 students on a bus, drove us around Rabat until we had no directional bearings whatsoever, and dropped us off one by one on random street corners throughout the city. Our first full day in Morocco and each of us was left stranded on a different street corner with no maps, no cell phones, and no idea how to even pronounce the street our hotel was on. The only thing we had was an assignment. Get back to the hotel by 1 o’clock. Welcome to Morocco and good luck.

    As the bus pulled away it kicked up a huge cloud of dust, which settled adding to the already thick layer on the cars parked along the curb. Across the street was a clay wall, stretching as far as I could see in both directions. “Where am I?!” Panic is an interesting sensation and watching the bus pull away with the teachers and students I was convinced I would never see again, I got to experience heart-pounding, adrenaline-pumping, rational-thought-inhibiting, panic.

    As I frantically looked around I noticed one opening in the wall flanked by two heavily armed Moroccan soldiers. I had heard stories about corrupt police officers in developing countries, about the actions of local military around the world who were supposed to be protecting refugees in various places, and decided the best direction to start walking would be away from the men with guns, uniform or no uniform. It would be much later before I realized this was my first decision in Morocco based entirely on a stereotype.

    I walked down a few residential streets, which were of course deserted. Where were all those people I had seen out on the streets the day before? Where were the market streets I glimpsed through the bus windows bustling with people and literally humming with energy? I was desperate to find a person, and it appeared I had been dropped off on the only street in Rabat where no one was selling anything. I wanted to find people, and I wanted to find them before the band of angry Islamic fundamentalists rounded the corner and stoned me.

    Yes, that was one of the many thoughts running through my head as I tried to keep myself together. Despite all my boasting about being above the negative stereotyping of Arabs many friends and family engaged in, as I stood on the sidewalk of an unknown street somewhere in Rabat, I was genuinely afraid I was going to be harassed, beaten, or worse by those “fanatical Arabs.” So much for being a good liberal who doesn’t stereotype. I was alone, in a completely foreign country, with no knowledge of the language, or the culture, or where in God’s name my hotel was–and in that panic I embraced the most negative, racist stereotypes that had ever been presented in Western media. I wanted to go back to the time when being liberal meant eating vegan chocolate cake and discussing Said’s definition of orientalism on the quad of my $34,000 a year university in Northwest Washington, DC. While I walked, my mind kept repeating, “What am I doing here? I’m a white girl from Snellville, Georgia USA, where all the teenagers wear ‘what would Jesus do?’ bracelets. Why didn’t I study abroad in London with all of my friends?”

    After what seemed like forever, but of course in these situations is really only a minute or two, I found a street with stores, cafes and, most importantly, a group of women standing on a corner not far in front of me. I walked up to them and steeled myself for all the anti-American sentiment I was certain would come spewing forth. Then a funny thing happened. When I said the name of the main road near our hotel all the women started smiling and pointing. One woman in what looked like a long brown nightshirt (I later learned it is called a djellabah) and a cream hijab, took my elbow and guided me down the street so I could see where she was pointing. The others followed all smiling and telling me the way.

    Visiting the beaches of Rabat with my homestay family! My little brother and sister for four months.

    Unfortunately they were telling me in Arabic of which I knew not one word. I did, however, get the general direction, and I started walking that way. As I walked, it occurred to me the women had been nice. They had been helpful. Nobody had given me a mean look or angry gesture. They had read my body language, figured out I was lost, and pointed me in the right direction. I began thinking, “Maybe other people I meet would be nice too? Maybe I’ll get back to the hotel alive?” Things were looking up.

    I approached a young couple walking down the street and they stopped and gave me very detailed directions in French smiling the entire time. It took about three sentences from the couple for me to realize that I had seriously overestimated my French skills on my program application, but I understood enough to get turned down the right street. I was getting closer and I had talked to two groups of people who had been more than happy to help me. The panic was slowly being replaced by a sense of confidence and a sneaking suspicion nobody was going to kill me along the way.

    Finally, while I was standing on a corner with my facial expressions screaming, “I am totally lost,” a young man came up and asked politely in French if he could help. I explained that I was looking for my hotel and that I didn’t speak French all that well. He smiled and said slowly that he knew where the hotel was, it wasn’t far and he would walk me to it. And that is exactly what he did. I don’t where he had been going or what his afternoon plans had been, but this man took twenty minutes out of his day to walk some random and confused foreigner to the door of her hotel. I was grateful and shocked by how generous this man had been with his time.

    As pleasantly surprising as this man’s generosity had been it was not the biggest surprise of the day. I was struck to the core when I walked into the hotel’s lobby and saw it was filled with students and all the Moroccans who had taken the time to help each of us find our way back. As we breathlessly shared our stories at increasing levels of volume, it became evident that every student made it back to the hotel through the generosity of complete strangers who were willing to take time out of their day to help another person. We had not experienced any kind of anti-American sentiment; in fact most of us had gotten incredibly positive reactions toward Americans. I hadn’t come across a flag or Bush effigy burning in the street. I had been in Morocco one full day and I had already had an exciting and liberating adventure, which introduced to many touchingly generous people and brought me face to face with my own hidden stereotypes.

    When the rush of having successfully followed someone who knew exactly where he was going began to ebb I was forced to face the humbling fact of how quickly, and without any good reason, I had thought the worst of all the people around me. It turned out, after all my pre-departure pontificating I had at some point internalized the same negative stereotypes of Arab Muslims I was consciously trying to avoid. I knew the first step to ridding myself of these stereotypes was admitting I had them in the first place.

    The program staff was amazing!!!

    Recognizing and then confronting stereotypes is one of the most difficult parts of traveling to another country and it seems unfair that a person should be forced to do this while jet-lagged, sleep-deprived, and trying not to get lost every time she ventures out of her hotel, this last one being especially difficult when the street signs are written in a different alphabet. Unfortunately, travelers have no choice because it usually only takes landing at the airport to realize just how far off your preconceptions were. Failing to identify your own stereotypes and the information that led to their creation will be the cause of hair-pulling frustration and anger at the people for not being exactly the way you had imagined them in your head. While tenaciously clinging to stereotypes, particularly if they are negative, will also blind a person to the wonderful and fascinating realities and practices of any culture. Recognizing stereotypes for what they are, imagined realities based on limited information, and preparing yourself to leave them behind as you learn and observe the reality from within the culture, are essential in order to make the transition into a new culture.

    This picture has nothing to do with the article except that it was taken during my semester in Morocco. I just wanted to share it.

     

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  • Dengue, Zika, Chikungunya, & Yellow Fever

    Dengue, Zika, Chikungunya, & Yellow Fever

    This is public enemy #1!
    Aedes aegypti. Know it and squish it!

    There are over 3,000 species of mosquitoes. A fact I think proves there’s no benevolent deity.

    This post is a run down of the basic info on the common mosquito born diseases in Brazil: dengue, zika, chikungunya, and yellow fever. It’s essential information if you’re visiting.

    Because the mosquitoes are winning.

    Last year in the wake of zika and the microcephaly epidemic in Brazil, the federal government mobilized troops to patrol for standing water basically declaring war against mosquitoes. The yellow fever outbreak this year is evidence of how well that went in the long term.

    So here’s everything you didn’t want to need to know about mosquito born illnesses in Brazil.

    DENGUE: Let’s start with dengue because it kills the most people every year. I know zika is the Kim Kardashian of the bunch, hogging all the media attention, but dengue is most likely to put you in the hospital. There were roughly 1.5 million registered cases of dengue in Brazil last year and of those 629 died. The severity depends on which of the four strains of the virus you get. The worst causes hemorrhaging, but most people just get incapacitating joint pain and high fever.

    Dengue is usually transmitted through the bite of an infected mosquito, but it can be passed from mother to fetus. The disease is asymptomatic in 40-80% of cases. The incubation ranges from 3 to 14 days.

    Symptoms

    • Sudden high fever
    • Severe headache
    • Severe joint pain
    • Moderate joint pain
    • Severe pain behind the eyes (basically your body will hurt a lot)
    • A skin rash that appears post fever
    • Fatigue
    • Nausea
    • Itching

    The Severe Case Symptoms (everything above plus…)

    • Bleeding from the nose and gums
    • Abdominal pain
    • Vomiting
    • Hypotension
    • Dizziness
    • Breathing difficulty

    In rare cases, sometimes after a second infection, a person can develop dengue hemorrhagic fever which leads to shock and death in 24 hours. Yeah, dengue totally sucks.

    There’s no vaccine. There’s no drug treatment. The only thing to do with dengue is treat the symptoms and be sure not use any aspirin because it increases the risk of hemorrhaging.

    Yeah, they’re all cute and cuddly until one drops dead of yellow fever.

    ZIKA: If you’ve been to Brazil in the last year and sneezed, you might have had zika. Or maybe you didn’t sneeze. You still might have had zika. Most cases are asymptomatic, about 80%.

    Of the most common mosquito borne diseases, zika results in the fewest hospital cases. In 2016 there were 214,193 cases of Zika in Brazil and 3 deaths. The global panic over zika is because of it’s link to microcephaly, a condition that babies develop in utero which prevents the brain and skull from developing normally.

    And let’s be clear. There IS scientific consensus that the zika virus is one of the causes of microcephaly. I believe in the CDC, WHO, and peer reviewed scientific journals. Conspiracy theorists can save themselves time and not bother commenting about genetically altered mosquitos. I will just delete them.

    The fact the disease is asymptomatic in the majority of cases makes it particularly scary for women who are or may become pregnant. It’s possible to have zika and never know until the baby develops complications. Even if you develop symptoms, they’re usually mild.

    Symptoms

    • low grade fever
    • headache
    • skin rash starting on the face and spreading over the body
    • red eyes
    • itching
    • fatigue
    • sore joints

    Less Common Symptoms

    • Muscle pain
    • Swelling
    • Sore throat
    • Vomiting or diarrhea
    • Swelling

    So now pregnant women all over Brazil can worry that their swollen legs and exhaustion is actually zika. Because there wasn’t enough for expectant parents to worry about. Fucking mosquitos.

    There’s no vaccine.

    CHIKUNGUNYA: Unlike zika and dengue, if you get chikungunya, you’ll know. 70% of cases develop symptoms. At least you don’t have to wonder whether or not you need a doctor.

    Last year there were 265,554 cases of chikungunya resulting in 159 deaths, so worse than zika but not as prevalent as dengue.

    Symptoms

    • Sudden onset of high fever
    • Severe joint pain mostly in feet, ankles, hands, wrists

    About the joint pain, almost every case has it and in rare cases it becomes chronic.

    Less Common Symptoms

    • Intense back pain
    • Headache
    • Muscle pain
    • Vomiting
    • Conjunctivitis
    • Fatigue
    • Photophobia
    • Sore throat

    Basically everything hurts like hell.

    Like the others, there’s no vaccine for chikungunya and no treatment beyond treating the symptoms.

    CDC’s risk area for yellow fever in South America

    YELLOW FEVER: The CDC’s website has a map of areas where yellow fever vaccines are recommended. The risk area for Brazil extends just up to the border of our state. So far this year 31 people have died from yellow fever in Esparto Santo. Dear CDC, you need to update your map.

    Yellow fever is typically passed via an infected monkey to mosquito to human, so areas without dense forests were considered safe. The incubation period is 3 to 6 days but most cases are asymptomatic.

    Symptoms

    • Sudden high fever
    • Severe headache
    • Back pain
    • Muscle pain
    • Nausea & vomiting
    • Fatigue
    • Weakness

    After a brief remission, 15% of cases will develop a severe form of the disease.

    Symptoms of Severe Form

    • High fever
    • Jaundice (hence the name)
    • Bleeding
    • Shock
    • Organ Failure

    Of cases that turn severe 20-50% die.

    We got our yellow fever vaccines!

    But good news! There’s a vaccine! Two doses taken ten years apart provide lifetime immunity. Yay science! If you’re thinking about visiting Brazil this year, double check to see if your hotel is located within one of the new expanded risk area. Be sure to use a Brazilian site. Remember, the CDC’s map is out of date.

    Vaccines are being developed for the other three. Several companies will have zika vaccines ready for clinical trials by the end of the year. Late stage clinical trials of dengue vaccines are already underway, and researchers have reported success with initial clinical trials for chikungunya vaccines. Unfortunately, we’re still years away from these vaccines being available to the public.

    In the meantime, don’t cancel your vacation. Just be prepared. Get a yellow fever vaccine. Pack repellent. Sleep with your windows closed and fan on. And for god’s sake, if you see a mosquito, kill it!

  • Getting Our Yellow Fever Vaccines

    Getting Our Yellow Fever Vaccines

    This is public enemy #1!
    Aedes aegypti. It carries dengue, zika, & chikungunya.

    Mosquito born viruses did not cross my mind when considering what my daily life would be like in Brazil, but it turns out that repellent is right up there with sunscreen as a daily necessity.

    I certainly never lost sleep over a mosquito in the U.S., but here in Brazil, more than once we’ve turned the lights on in the middle of the night at the whine of a mosquito. Some people might think mosquito hunting at 2am is overreacting, but my husband has had dengue. The steely-eyed commitment with which he stalks every mosquito in our home makes me think the experience has stayed with him.

    Public health officials in Brazil take mosquitoes seriously too. They’ve been battling dengue for decades. Chikungunya and Zika became common place in the last few years, and this year, Espirito Santo and its neighbor, Minas Gerais, are combating the spread of yellow fever. My family and I got our yellow fever vaccines last week, and it was an impressive operation.

    If you know the monkey might have yellow fever, is it still as cute?

    Vaccine distribution is one public service Brazil has mastered. At the end of February, the city government confirmed a monkey found dead in Vitoria in January had died from yellow fever. This one dead monkey kicked public health services into Defcon 5. The city closed 11 parks in the metro area. The federal government sent 1 million more doses of yellow fever vaccine to Espirito Santo. Public Health posts’ hours and days of operation were expanded. Churches have been converted to vaccination centers. Firefighters and nurses from public hospitals have been enlisted to distribute and administer the vaccines. This past Saturday 98,904 people were vaccinated in the metro area bringing the total vaccinated to over 800,000 in a little over two weeks.

    This is public health at it’s most efficient and most militarized. I know from personal experience. We were assigned a specific vaccination center and time when my husband reserved our vaccines online. When we got to the church, we had to present IDs for everyone, including my daughter, before we could enter the building where people waited in rows of white plastic chairs. We’d been assigned numbers at the entrance, and in what has to be one of the shortest waits in the history of line waiting in Brazil, a woman in a white lab coat, clipboard in hand, called our numbers, and we entered the heart of the operation.

    Along one wall was a row of nurses and firefighters taking down people’s names, ID numbers, and stamping vaccine cards. Firefighters are militarized in Brazil, and their khaki green uniforms with ranks sewn on their shirts made the whole scene feel like something out of Contagion. Along the adjacent wall, was another group readying vaccines before passing them in a ceaseless stream to the one woman who administered vaccines. Needle in. Needle out. Hands off the old needle. Accepts freshly opened vaccine. Needle in. Needle out.

    It wasn’t frantic, but it was efficient. People were moved around the room and back out the door with a lack of pleasantries I have never witnessed in Brazil.

    We survived!

    My daughter did not like it. She’d been totally chill about it until we got inside the vaccination room. The tension and focus that permeated the air had her clinging to her dad and begging to go. And these people were not waiting for her to calm down. I don’t blame them. They’re trying to vaccinate a few million people. My husband and I went first, trying to teach by example. It had no effect. She just got more hysterical with every second, so my husband held her in his arms. I held her arm straight, and the vaccine lady jabbed the needle in.

    For the rest of the day, my daughter showed off the tiny, nearly invisible red dot left behind like the scars of a near-death shark attack.

    As of Friday, there were 20 confirmed yellow fever deaths in our state. That’s 20 deaths out of 80 confirmed cases. The math is simple. That’s a 25% fatality rate. In neighboring Minas Gerais, there have been 109 deaths out 288 confirmed cases. I’m getting my calculator…37.8%. Wow, I hadn’t realized until writing this how bad this outbreak is.

    So if you’re planning on visiting Brazil anytime soon, I’d check if you’re ecolodge is smack in the middle of a high risk zone, and then I’d pack lots and lots of repellent regardless.

  • 5 Tips for Authors Writing During a Breakdown of Law & Order

    5 Tips for Authors Writing During a Breakdown of Law & Order

    This is the exact opposite of what I looked like reviewing pages to send off.

    A month ago, my completed YA novel was selected for the annual Sun versus Snow writing contest, and I got the chance to work with a published author to polish my pitch materials and have them read by 21 agents.

    Four days after the winners were announced, the police in my state went on strike.

    On the day of the agent round, we boarded a plane on an emergency trip to find working law enforcement.

    It was not the first-contest-win experience I’d imagined. I had envisioned sitting in front of my computer during the agent round, compulsively eating Kit Kat and obsessively refreshing the website to see if I got requests. Instead we booked an afternoon flight to a state with police, threw clothes in suitcases, stuffed passports in shoes, and took a taxi to the airport.

    While I might not have been able to follow #sunversussnow as frequently as I would have liked, I was able to learn some valuable lesson about how to get the most out of a writing contest while law and order breaks down around you. Here are 5 tips for writing during a security emergency.

    1. Don’t procrastinate.  When you find out your manuscript was selected to participate, you will be thrilled and checking your email every two minutes for that first contact from your mentor. An actual published author is sending you an email! Keep that enthusiasm. You’re going to need it in order to get everything done ahead of time. From the time the police go on strike until a significant surge in assaults, you have about 48 hours. You’re going to want to send off final revisions before the shit really hits the fan.

    2. Take the opportunity to work on mental discipline. This is really for parent writers. With schools being closed due to security concerns, you’re going to have to write between pouring grape juice and explaining (again) why there are not second helpings of dessert. Think of it as an afternoon of ten minute writing sprints. Interval training for your creative muscles. How much can you get in before the next “Mommy!”?

    3. Use it as a distraction. While your fellow participants are wearing out their fingers refreshing the website hoping to see agent requests, you can use the last minute decision to fly to Rio as a reason to step away from the computer. As you puzzle over how much to pack considering you bought an open ended ticket, you might even briefly forget it is the agent round. When you do remember, it’s going to be at a super inconvenient time like in the middle of airport security, and you’ll be forced to practice patience.

    4. Back up everything! You will be faced with a choice when packing for your last minute trip: bring your computer or don’t bring your computer. Your husband will advise against it given the 400% rise in carjackings. But what if you get an agent request? How will send off pages without your computer? You have to send them while the contest is fresh in the agent’s mind. Obviously you can’t wait three whole days!!! But what if your computer is stolen?!! Don’t stress. The answer is to put everything in iCloud, Google drive, a flash drive which you hide in the pencil jar, and in emails to yourself. You should be covered in the event of a carjacking.

    5. Embrace the idea: Done and sent is better than “Almost perfect, just fifteen more minutes. For real this time.” Look, having to frantically reread your first fifty pages (because you actually got your first agent request for pages! Ahh!) while your family is crammed together in the hotel with the sound of PJ Masks in the background is not an ideal writing environment. You’re not going to turn out ideal work. It’s ok. Do what you can. Remember you’ve already read through those pages fifteen times. Acknowledge your mentor was awesome and helped you write a hell of a query letter that works! Then send the pages. There will be more requests in the future.

    It was an honor to be selected for Snow versus Snow! Thanks to the judges and contest coordinators Michelle Hauck and Amy Trueblood. I do wish I’d been able to focus on the contest, interact more with fellow participants on Twitter, and celebrate the agent requests I did get, but these are minor complaints. My mentor Max Wirestone gave spot on feedback. His book The Unfortunate Decision of Dahlia Moss came out in February, but he still volunteered to be a mentor for the contest! Thanks to him, I have hugely improved pitch materials.

    The contest also inspired me not to give up on Pangea. After no requests for pages from agents last year, I was ready to set it aside and focus exclusively on my new historical fiction, but now I’m tweaking the manuscript and sending it back out there.

    As my daughter’s favorite book, Rosie Revere Engineer says “Life might have its failures, but this was not it. The only true failure can come if you quit.”

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  • A Different Part of the Pig: Volunteering in Croatia

    A Different Part of the Pig: Volunteering in Croatia

    Today is a Throwback Thursday post. I was cleaning out old files and discovered this essay I wrote about a memorable lunch with my homestay family while volunteering in Croatia during the summer of 2003. I wrote it in 2007 for a contest at a now defunct magazine. It was one of the first pieces of creative non-fiction I ever wrote and thought it would be fun to share because the question raised are some I still ask myself daily living in Brazil. (Also, this past week was Carnaval, so I haven’t had time to write anything new.)

     

    A Different Part of the Pig

    Koprivnica, Croatia

    It was with something less than enthusiasm that I sat down for lunch next to my host sister.  I had never quite understood what indigestion was, but after three weeks of eating plates of fried meat swimming in its own fat, I could now write an epic poem to its effects.  Unfortunately, the small little village of Zdala, Croatia, where I was teaching, had only 600 people and no CVS with shelves of antacids to choose from.  So, while I was thoroughly enjoying the rewards and challenges of teaching English to the local kids, the prospect of three more weeks of potatoes, bread and meat drowned in liquid fat made each meal a bit of a trial.

     

    Zdala, Croatia

    I was staying in Zdala with a generous family who had volunteered to house me while I was teaching.  They weren’t receiving any kind of money or stipend for their trouble. I also knew from my walks around the village with my host sisters that no family in the village had resources to waste.  Every house in Zdala had its own small farm and animals that supplied the staples for each meal.  Knowing this, I couldn’t refuse to accept their generosity, even if it made my stomach feel like a beach ball blown up to the point of bursting.  What would my host family think if I turned down the large helping of meat specially prepared for me and asked for a cucumber instead?

     

    My adorable homestay sister

    As I looked at the table that afternoon, it looked pretty much like every other lunch.  Potatoes and onions, bread (which was homemade, amazing, and the one thing I was never sorry to see) and a large dish of meat stacked in the center of a shinning pool of grease.  But there was something different on the meat this day.  It was placed directly on top of the meat, like the star on a Christmas tree.  A grayish, jiggly star.  Oh no.  I looked at my host mother and grandmother on the opposite side of the table.  There was no way I could discreetly ask my host sister what it was that jiggled at the top of the meat tower. And I knew as the guest, I was going to be offered the first helping.

    These amazing kids chose to attend English classes during their summer vacation!

    That summer in Croatia was my first time living abroad, and the first time I had ever lived with a family other than my own.  I was desperate to make a good impression.  I wanted them to like me and not write me off as one of the arrogant Americans I had heard the cousin talk about.  But I do not eat food that jiggles.  I have had a lifelong no-jiggly-food policy.  I believe that orange Jell-O is the worst food ever invented.  I was sure my family would offer the jiggly thing to me, and I wasn’t sure I could tactfully refuse it on the grounds that it jiggled.

    I was still staring at this piece of grayish, jiggly matter when Granny spooned it out and sure enough, offered it in my direction.  I looked down at the offered spoon and saw them, two slits in the flat top of the fat.  Oh God!  It was a nose.  I was being offered a pig’s nose.  I looked across the table at Granny.  Here was a sweet old woman, smiling kindly and holding out a large spoon with a pig’s nose nestled in it.  I didn’t know whether to laugh or throw up.

    Coming face to face—or, more accurately, face to nose—with a pig nose in a spoon, I knew it could be considered hypocritical to eat some parts of the pig but be repulsed by others.  I was clearly the only one there who found a pig’s nose on the table unusual. I didn’t want to seem rude.  I had come on my first trip abroad prepared to try new things. I was ready to be open-minded, but apparently not open-mouthed. I knew my family couldn’t afford to waste any part of the animal, but I couldn’t eat the nose. I wanted to adapt to Croatian culture, but I couldn’t deny who I was either.  What level of discomfort was I supposed to be willing to accept in order to avoid offending my hosts?  Where should I, or could I, draw the line?

    As it turned out, I didn’t have to answer those questions on that day.  My hesitation (and possibly the shade of green on my face) had tipped off my host family that I was not accustomed to eating this particular part of the pig.  They started laughing, and my sister said I didn’t have to eat it if I didn’t want to.  She didn’t like pig noses, either.  But Granny loved them.  And with that, Granny put the nose on her plate, scooped it up with her own spoon, and slurped it into her mouth.  I knew I would never see Granny in the same way after that.

    My family enjoyed teasing me with other animal parts over the next weeks, like a chicken beak in the soup.  I was so thrilled they didn’t think I was rude that I didn’t even protest when a chicken’s foot was placed right on the middle of my plate.  In retrospect, I could have saved myself some panic if I had just explained that where I come from, we don’t eat noses.  After all, the family didn’t want me eating or doing anything I felt uncomfortable with.

    I still struggle with the question of how far I should go in adapting to different cultures.  There is a balance.  I could not have expected my host family to provide me the exact same foods I had at home.  It was impossible to make Zdala like home.  Living in another country means being uncomfortable and trying things that are often scary.  But at the same time, I cannot reject my own culture and my own feelings.  How far should I go?  Where do I draw the line?  It changes.  I haven’t found the balance yet.  I do have one line that doesn’t move though.  It’s just in front of the pig’s nose.

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  • When the Police Went on Strike in Vitoria

    When the Police Went on Strike in Vitoria

    Vitoria, Espirito Santo, Brazil

    I’d been wondering how to break a five months long silence on my blog. I couldn’t think of a topic or an angle. I didn’t know what I wanted to write about to kick off a new year.

    Then the police went on strike.

    Early Saturday, February 4, the wives and families of police officers across the state of Espirito Santo gathered in front of barracks, forming human chains across the entrances effectively blocking any police or vehicles from entering or leaving the barracks. After four years without a pay raise and the lowest salaries of any police in Brazil, the movement wanted a raise and bonuses for night and higher risk work for the police. By late Saturday morning, there were no police on the streets anywhere in the state of Espirito Santo.

    It actually took a couple of days for their absence to be felt statewide. Saturday was a totally normal day for us. We went to a park near the beach and had lunch out. A sitter came over later, and my husband and I had date night. We walked to our favorite restaurant, passing people grabbing ceviche from a food truck, walking dogs, or making a late run to the drug store.

    The only hiccup came at the door of the restaurant. It was locked. There were people inside eating. The security guy confirmed the restaurant was open and within seconds a waiter let us in, locking the door behind us.

    Our blissful ignorance lasted until Sunday morning. When planning our day, my husband said in passing “The police are on strike, so we should go somewhere with private security.”

    Excuse, me?

    One long term consequence of the strike for me personally is that I’ve now started reading my local paper. Something I should have probably been doing on occasion these last six years.

    We did go out in the morning, but by Sunday evening we were having dinner at home. With the increased risk of violence, public hospitals, schools, and universities across the state closed for Monday. Private schools, including my daughters, followed suit. Monday, February 6, was supposed to be the first day of the new school year.

    That night I noticed my husband locking the deadbolts before going to bed. We never locked the deadbolts before.

    The texts from concerned friends around Brazil and even in Portugal started popping up Monday morning as did footage from around the city and state. While our neighborhood had been relatively quiet over the weekend, other areas were not as fortunate. Gangs of looters attacked stores around the metro area. A burning bus, armed robbers zipping around on motorcycle, shoot outs in the street. I learned several stores in our neighborhood had been robbed over the weekend, and pictures of smashed storefronts and videos of carjackings were filling up my Facebook feed.

    Gangs were taking advantage of the police’s absence and shooting anyone from a rival territory who crossed their path. The number of murders in the metro Vitoria area over the weekend was 51 compared to 4 in January.

    By Monday afternoon, the extent of the violence that had descended on the state in the police’s absence was clear. The state government asked Brasilia for military assistance.

    We stayed home all day Monday. Schools were canceled for a second day, so we stayed home all day Tuesday. By the end of the day Tuesday after more than 60 hours at home, my daughter and I were screaming at each other over a Lego train. Our problems were nothing.

    Vila Velha, Espirito Santo The city across the bridge from Vitoria. All part of metro Vitoria.

    By Wednesday the police union was reporting the number of violent deaths in Espirito Santo during the strike had risen to 90. 200 cars were reported stolen on Wednesday up from an average of 20. More than 200 robberies and assaults. Schools, stores, restaurants remained closed. R$90 million loss to businesses. Public transportation had stopped running. The streets were completely empty.

    My dad called from the US on Wednesday morning.

    I hadn’t called anyone. Our neighborhood was quiet, our doors were locked, and the army had been spotted patrolling a few blocks from our building. We were safe, so I didn’t see any reason to alarm family. But the BBC picked up the strike. For maybe the first time ever Vitoria, Brazil was international news, and my dad saw the headline.

    I assured my dad we were safe and our neighborhood was calm. I told him about the Governor’s press conference that morning in which he passionately declared the strike illegal and unconstitutional and vowed not to negotiate with hostage takers. Meanwhile, one of the wives in the movement gave an interview vowing not to move until the police got a raise. So there wasn’t going to be any deal in the near future.

    I didn’t mention the attempted building invasion that happened around corner Tuesday night.

    I was putting my daughter to bed and didn’t hear the commotion, but my husband did. He thought it was people cheering the army driving through the streets. We learned the next morning that a gang had tried to break into one of the apartment buildings around the corner. Somehow they were thwarted, but we were done. What is a single doorman going to do against a mob? Our uneventful days at home now seemed more like good luck than legitimate security.

    We bought one-way tickets for Rio and left that afternoon. The irony of going to Rio de Janeiro to escape violence is not lost on me. Our first day in Rio, there was a massive strike against the privatization of the water company. We drove by streets packed with police trucks and vans and battalions in full riot gear. “Oh, here are all the police.”

    We spent the remainder of the police strike in Rio checking the news constantly to see if a deal had been reached. Friday night the government announced a deal, but on Saturday morning the wives and families announced they had no intention of leaving because they had not been included in the deal. The governor signed a decree handing security over to the army, which called in 3,000 troops. The strike was declared illegal in court, and police were ordered to return to the streets. A week after the strike began, the news reported more 700 police officers were being indicted.

    With the additional troops, violence subsided and residents desperate to resume normal lives after a week of unrest returned to the streets. The buses were back to running on Sunday. Schools announced they would finally start the new year on Monday. We flew back on Sunday afternoon to find the city running more or less as usual.

    As of this morning, the government says 1,900 police have returned to patrols, which is “close to the normal amount”. I’d like to know exactly how close, but I have a feeling the government wants everyone to just assume 95%. Based on how normal life around the city is, I’d guess that’s what we’re all doing.

    There are still families protesting. Not all barracks have returned to patrols. The government has released a list of 155 names of officers under investigation. The state also released its own number of homicides. Between February 4 and 13, there were 143 homicides. February 6 was the most violent. 40 people were murdered compared to three the same day last year. The Federation of Goods and Commerce estimates losses for businesses will exceed R$300 million.

    One of many articles on the protestors

    Through the whole crisis the wives and families surrounding the barracks insist the protest was their idea alone, and the police had nothing to do with it. They claim it was organized among themselves through social media without their husbands’ knowledge. No one believes this.

    There were many people who agreed with them that working conditions for the police in Espirito Santo are abysmal. The government should be ashamed. Brazil’s economic crisis has been driving up inflation but the police in Espirito Santo haven’t had a salary adjustment in four years, let alone an actual raise. But they overplayed their hand. What started as a protest by wives, mothers, and sister gathering at a single barracks in Serra grew over the course of 24 hours to a full police strike that brought statewide chaos.

    It was shocking, frightening, and for my part almost too surreal to feel anything. I went to the airport with my and my daughter’s passports in my shoes.

    And now if you weren’t personally affected by the violence, it’s life as usual.

    Except it’s pretend. People are dead and livelihoods lost. The police didn’t get their raise, and now hundreds are at risk of losing their jobs and the commanders are saying publicly the police department and its hierarchy has been completely destroyed. The army will be providing extra security for Carnaval celebrations and has promised to stay as long as it’s needed, which is indefinitely at the moment. And honestly having my streets patrolled indefinitely by soldiers trained for war, not civilian law enforcement, makes me queasy.

    And yet I’m sitting at a café with my cappuccino writing a blog post loving the freedom that comes with a regular school day.

    It was a disaster. There were no winners. Just a very, very long list of losers. I’d say I’m glad it’s over but it’s not over. The police might be back on the streets, but the fall out hasn’t even begun. And the list of losses will just keep growing.

     

     

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  • Knocked Up Abroad Again is Now Available!

    Knocked Up Abroad Again is Now Available!

    creativity-is-intelligence-having-fun-2I’m thrilled to announce that after a successful Kickstarter campaign Knocked Up Abroad Again is available for purchase on Amazon!

    Hip, hip, hooray! Hip, hip…Dear god, I’m never doing another Kickstarter campaign again. I wasn’t even in charge of the thing. Our editor put in a billion more hours organizing and promoting the thing, but I still felt like a used car salesman begging people to donate their hard earned money and time on my words. Who am I kidding? How am I ever going to promote and sell my own books if I can’t promote a collaborative work on Kickstarter on my Facebook? Even if I get published I’m never going to sell a single book. Never! My promotional posts will read “If you don’t mind and happen to enjoy this particular type of book and maybe have ten extra dollars to spare I would greatly appreciate it if you wouldn’t mind buying my book and if you really, really liked it then perhaps tell a friend about it. If you have the time and it won’t be a huge inconvenience. That would be really great. Thanks so much. (And if you’re not into YA or not a huge reader I totally understand. No hard feelings.)” I’m never going to sell a single book. But how can I be an author if can’t ask people to buy my book? Aaaaaagh!

    Sorry about that. I got off track. What was I saying? Oh right, Knocked Up Abroad Again has been successfully funded and is now available for purchase on Amazon! It’s the perfect gift for expectant parents, travelers, and expectant travelers in your life. If you want. I don’t want to insist. Pretty please. But only if you like this sort of thing.

    In all seriousness, thank you to everyone who donated to the project, and I hope you enjoy the book!

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