The Place for Porcelain

Palm tree sweaters.
It's a thing.

Monte Sião is a small town about a hundred kilometers from Campinas, across the state border in Minas Gerais.  While not a major tourist destination, it is known locally for its many sweater and knitted-goods shops and a renowned porcelain factory.  The former is not so much because Monte Sião is particularly cold - it's not - but because of the sheep industry surrounding the town.  One older lady, knitting next to her kiosk of scarves and shawls informed me that there are "three thousand wool shops in the town."  While this number may not be exactly official, after walking around a bit, she may not be far off.

Our reason for visiting was for the porcelain, however.  The Porcelana Monte Sião Ltda. factory, founded in 1959, is world-famous for its blue and white hand-painted pieces, though brown and white and plain white versions are also produced. Being a Saturday the factory was not functioning, but we were free to wander through and see the different pieces in their various states of readiness.  And, of course, there was some consumerism to occupy ourselves with, as well!

Monte Sião Porcelain

The town was originally known as Arraial do Jabuticabal, but was changed in 1850 at the suggestion of Franciscan missionaries who thought the area resembled the biblical "Mont Sion."  Since then the name has changed slightly to accommodate the local language, however, the semblance remains.

Exploring the factory

The finished product!

Only A Little Crazy

Inspiring or ominous?The race's starting point.
The inscription beneath the obelisk
reads: "They lived a little to die well.
They died young to live forever."

Anyone truly wishing to "get in touch with their inner self" ought to just run a marathon.  At one point or another, all of your selves will make an appearance, often at the same time, though many don't have the discipline to stick around too long.

Rest assured, they're all there!  The enthusiastic "this is so much fun" voice.  The competitive one. The pessimistic "this sucks" side of your brain - mine has quite the potty mouth - and its good friend the self-destructive, cynical voice who tells you you're not prepared, points out every ache and its potential for fatality, but who usually peaces out after you finally break through "the wall."  There's the rational one who negotiates with you when you don't want to run up that hill at kilometer 37, saying that if you make it halfway, then you can speed-walk to the crest.

And I have the reflective one who is composing this blogpost in real time, making observations along the way.  Sometimes this voice in annoying - I mean, seriously, can you please focus!  Other times it has a humorous side.  I mean, I think it does, but then I'm often strapped for oxygen to my brain so, it's questionable.

The Octavio Frias de Oliveira Bridge:
An impressive piece of art and engineering.

Some notable observations from the 2013 São Paulo Marathon:

• The Octavio Frias de Oliveira Bridge is one of the city's iconic landmarks.  The race ran underneath and then across it. Mostly because occurred a mere 10 kilometers into the race, it was spectacular.  However, in mentally preparing myself for the return trip on the out and back course, I wanted nothing more than to "not see that @#%!*$ bridge again." We didn't, so I'm glad I was in better spirits when we did cross it.
• Usually I spend time composing a playlist that collectively builds in tempo as the race progresses, for pacing purposes.  Then there's some aggressive hip-hip, rock, or reggaeton in the middle with some inspirational wailing songs at the end.  This time I simply threw a bunch of the normal fare into a playlist and hit random.  They didn't always work out, but Gym Class Heroes' "The Fighter," Mase's "Breathe, Stretch, Shake" (old school, I know), Pink's "Try," and Jonny Lang's new "Blew Up the House" helped me out a lot.  In addition, though it came at the beginning when I didn't need it, Christina Aguilera's new "We Remain" (from the upcoming Hunger Games sequel) is amazing.
• Oh, yes!  Goo!  I love goo!  Chocolate?!?  Blech!  Seriously?  Not while I'm sweaty, exhausted, and parched.  Never then.  Ever.  Why does that flavor even exist in goo?  
• Around kilometer 18 I remember distinctly thinking that this had to be the sunniest day to ever occur in São Paulo history.  I'm reminded of this now as my face emanates heat.  Isn't São Paulo grey pretty much always?  Rainy or grey.  I thought that was the deal.  Hmm...
• Runners are always anxious to see where they will hit "the wall."  I thought I hit it at around kilometer 25.  Wrong.  That was a ledge.  Kilometer 30 was the wall.  Needless to say, the intervening five kilometers were a huge let-down.
• Also, right around hitting "the wall," the good people handing out water and other refueling goods, were distributing baby potatoes.  Is this a thing?  Really?  Really. I didn't eat them.  I did stuff them in my back pocket to take a picture later, under less distressing circumstances.
• There was the older woman handing out orange slices somewhere along kilometer 36 who awkwardly chased me down to ask where I was from.  When I told her, she responded with, "Oh, foreigners are the only ones who say 'Thank you'."  How nice?  (And, yes, an old lady was able to keep pace with me while holding a bucket of orange slices.)
• After a while you kind of keep passing and getting passed by the same dozen or so people.  They become your "rabbits" and you, theirs.  You exchange places based on if you physically stop at watering stations or simply because of your general fluctuating states of dying.  Yellow Shirt and I were playing switcheroo for nearly all the second half, until I eventually lost sight of him after a few walking episodes.  Then on the last half-kilometer, I saw him up ahead.  The competitive side of me would like to be able to say I chased him down.  That would be a lie.  I was not capable of moving any faster than what I was already doing.  Yellow Shirt, on the other hand, was toast.  Dude was done.  And I passed him.  I didn't even need to try and I kind of felt guilty.  Not guilty that I passed him, but that it took no extra effort; it was basically the marathon equivalent of a mercy kill.

Me talking to myself is no longer
the craziest part of this post.

In the end, I crossed the finish line in 3 hours 24 minutes and 41 seconds. The last full marathon I ran was Duluth, Minnesota's Grandma's Marathon in a PR time of 3:24:36 in June of 2009.  I will admit to being under-trained for this one, but, four and half years later, I'm impressed and pleased with the result!  Only five seconds slower; in the marathon world I think that's a tie!

It wouldn't be a real marathon without leaving
a few toenails behind, now would it?!?

Preach.

Running with the Night

The strangest part of doing a road race at night wasn't the time of the day.  It was figuring out what to do to prepare myself, physiologically, for the timing of the event.  Normally races begin in the morning.  I think about what I should eat the night before, when to wake up, what to eat for breakfast, and the ever-important timing of bathroom/biffy trips.

Night races throw those factors for a bit of a loop. Fortunately, not one that resulted in some unfortunate incident.

The Night Run - Campinas race took place at 8pm on a Saturday, with a course that looped around my preferred running route, the large Parque Portugal, more commonly referred to as Lagoa do Taquaral (Taquaral Lake).  There were 5K and 10K options and I opted for the later.  I honestly cannot remember the last time I raced such a "short" distance, but it was fun to mix it up and nice to do it on such familiar terrain where I knew every incline and curve.

I finished with a time of 43:51 minutes for the 10K and am pretty happy with that!  This put me at 41st overall and 13th in the 30-35 age bracket. 

There was a lot of yellow going on.

The race began, as all road races do, with a significant amount of weaving until people settle in to their appropriate pace-groups.  Since the 5K racers did one lap of the park and the 10Kers did two, the pack was thinning as we got near the end of the first loop, as the runners near me were either 10K racers keeping my pace or 5K champs keeping a decent clip.  I assumed the roads would be as clear and open for the rest of the time, but as I approach the second half of the second lap - kilometer 7ish for me - I encountered an ever-thickening group of 5K...walkers.  Walkers.  This got progressively worse as we neared the finish and the weaving recommenced.

Seriously, who enters a 5K race if you're going to be walking by kilometer 3?  If this were a charity run, I get it.  But you just paid at least $40USD to walk in the dark in an ugly yellow shirt.  Really?!?  And this wasn't just a few people; this is a collective couple kilometers of weaveable people we're talking about. 

With my friend, Claudia, post-race.

Add that to the list of things I don't get about Brazil.  (Along with why the name of the race was in English.  Incidentally, in Portuguese it's pronounced "ny-chee hoon.")

Either way, it was a well-run event and I enjoyed the novelty of night racing.  I would definitely consider doing another!

I should add this to my playlist...

Progress Report

As I start my second year in Campinas and Brazil I look back at some of the goals I had when I first touched down in São Paulo 12 months ago.  I did not accomplish all the goals I had set for myself, and as busy as last year was, I am okay with that:

• Learn Portuguese - Check (?) ...mais o menos. Always in progress!
• Dance samba - I have gone to samba clubs a couple times, need to make more effort to truly learn and not just slip into salsa.
• Make a delicious caipirinha myself - As delicious as these are, I try to avoid them for the instant rassaca they give me so this goal is not one I'm motivated to achieve...we'll see.
• Find a guitar teacher (preferably with limited English) -  Before 2014 it will happen.
• Get a bike and then bike to work - Not a goal at the moment.
• Volunteer - Check!  Co-sponsored a school Social Justice Club working with kids in a favela.
• Find and run a marathon within 12 months of arrival - Check...kind of.  Find?  Yes.  Register?  Yes.  Train for?  Yes.  Marathon postponed until October 2013?  Also, yes.  So...pending.
• Get back in the pool - Not a goal at the moment.
• 52 in 52 - Check!

Two original goals are no longer logical or logistical, however, I may decide to refocus on them in the future, so, I will leave them on the master list.  Without Portuguese class twice a week in the evenings anymore, I plan to replace that with guitar classes.

So, what do you do when you've crossed off goals?  You make more!

• Travel more! 
• Present at a PD Workshop
• Finish four Masters classes
• Get World Cup tickets to see Selección Colombia

Well Read

Fifty-two weeks equals one calendar year, any way you slice it.  Last June I set a goal (emulating a good friend who did the same previously) to read a book a week for a year - on average - 52 in 52.

Funny, I expected "52" to look like "more" because it sure felt like it!

I am proud to say that I've not only finished and read some fantastic books, but also learned a lot in the process.

1. Don't avoid the YA section: I may be way off base, but when I was younger, I feel "young adult" meant Goosebumps and Scholastic Read-a-longs.  Granted, I tore through the Hunger Games series in a little over a week's time, and one of my favorite reads from a couple years ago was Alexie Shermann's phenomenal The Absolutely True Stories of a Part-Time Indian, both of which fall completely into the YA category.  This year two such books landed on my list, both by recommendation: The Scorpio Races and Wonder.  Easily, both contained some of the most memorable literary moments of these past 52 weeks.
2. I like memoirs: Let's clarify something.  I like memoirs about people who are not "somebodies."  People who have connections to persons of interest or lived through an iconic, world-changing event themselves, but are otherwise unknown.  And they need to be decent writers.  
3. Toni Morrison is amazing: I have my favorite authors - Dave Eggers, Jonathan Safran Foer, Isabel Allende, Jhumpa Lahiri - but Toni Morrison is a master.  Until further notice, Morrison sits atop my list.  

When I started this experience I set some personal rules.  1) I could quit a book if I wasn't into it.  Just because I started it didn't obligate it being finished, though it in no way negated the week.  2) Speaking of the week, I didn't have to stick to it.  Life happens.  And some books are just really long.  "Average" is the operative word here.  3) Try not to choose books based on length.  Page numbers don't necessarily correlate with length; font size and word spacing can be tricky little bedfellows.  (But, obviously don't pick a 500 page behemoth when you're two weeks behind schedule!)  Basically, be reasonable.

BY THE NUMBERS:

Fiction Books: 36

Short-story Collections (but still Fiction): 5 (maybe 6*)

Non-Fiction (Non-Memoir): 7

Non-Fiction Memoirs/Biographies: 9

Male Authors: 30.5 **

Female Authors: 21.5 **

Oldest Book: The Great Gatsby - 1925 (Second Place: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - 1943)

Newest Book: The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards - 2013

Books Quit: 3

Books I Wish I Quit But Had Invested Too Much Time to Do So: 2

Books Read on Kindle: 28

Times I Tried Turning a Page of a Real Book By Tapping it: 3 (that I remember)

Longest Title: 12 words (The 100 Year Old Man Who Crawled Out the Window and Disappeared)

Shortest Title: 6 books with single-word titles, though two use only one syllable: Swim and Home 

Repeat Authors: Toni Morrison (with 2 books)

Books recommend by "book friends"***: Jocelyn (4), Annie (3), Sarah Lou (1), Tara (1), Oprah (2) and The Daily Beast (4)

Books That Made Me Cry: Full out - 1, Tear up - 4

Unexpected Repeating Themes: I'm not a "war story" kind of person, however, at least 8 of these books turned out to be undoubtedly about some war.  And 3 books in the list dealt with Nazi Germany in one way or another.

DRUM ROLL...

I had a hard time picking one favorite, so here are my top five BESTS that you must shove to the top of your reading lists (though even this was challenging):

1. The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards
2. Birds Without Wings
3. The Yellow Birds
4. The House at Sugar Beach
5. Waiting for Snow in Havana 

* I'm not sure whether to count fantastic The Twelve Tribes of Hattie as a short story collection or not; each chapter easily be isolated from the others, though for full enjoyment it should be read as one masterful work.
**One book, Half the Sky, was co-authored by journalist power-couple Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. I counted it as half so as to end with a total of 52 authors.
***While I got recommendations constantly, I erred on the side of caution and mostly went with those who have yet to steer me in the wrong direction, literarily speaking. 

Scream & Shout

This post is a follow-up on a previous post regarding the growing discontent amongst Brazilians with respect to their government and the ensuing public demonstrations.

Front page news shows a woman
getting blasted with pepper spray.

Now that the international media's attention* has been caught and eyes are on Brazilians as they take to the streets ("vem pra rua"), one goal of the people has been met: getting noticed.  If protesters wanted to have their country viewed as more than soccer, beaches, and bikini bottoms, then they have succeeded.

In some ways the demands have even been met.  Or, more accurately, one demand. The original 20 centavo public bus fare price hike from the beginning of the new year has been dropped back to what it was before.  (In Campinas the hike was actually more - 30 centavos.)  But, as many protest signs and online propaganda have alluded to, it is "more than the 20 centavos."  Some have called it the literal tip of the iceberg, while others equate it to only "a drop."

Likely the government is simply attempting to pacify citizens with the removal of the fare increase, though the success of this tactic is yet to be seen.  If it truly is about "more than the 20 centavos," then the protests should continue.  If they stop, the issue - or issues - will likely become more confusing.

The #changebrazil hashtag situation has already won some
celebrity support abroad including Katy Perry, Britney
Spears, and (pictured clockwise from top left) Mark
Zuckerberg, Lady Gaga, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and
Beyoncé.  I've seen others "endorsements" that have been
obviously photoshopped.

In many ways, it already is.  Since the 20 centavos is only the iceberg's tip or one drop of the issue, many citizens have jumped on the bandwagon with their own sets of underlying causes and additional related problems.  Many Brazilians I have spoken to, who support the protests, fear that this lack of laser focus may be the movement's downfall.  What do they want?  Change.  What do they want changed?  Well...everything.

This now becomes another bigger and more complex problem.  This kind of "everything change" only comes with new government officials, which usually only comes from new political parties, and new elections.  And what do these have in common?  They all take time.

Surely more time than lowering bus fares.

Campinas holds its own protest within the hour at the Largo do Rosário in the next neighborhood over from where I live.  So, as I sit typing this now to the symphony of car horns and shouting from car windows 14 floors below me, I wonder what, if any, this continued message will say to the Brazilian powers-that-be and the rest of the world.

"2013: The year Brazil stopped screaming for goals,
and decided to scream for history."

Less Soccer Tournaments (Cups)
More Transportation, Health, and Education.

* Reports from the BBC, The Daily Beast, and The New York Times.

All images were taken off of various Instagram and Facebook postings.

This Much I Know

O Cristo Redentor as seen from the foot of the Corcovado
Mountain in Rio de Janeiro.

Eleven months have both flown by and crawled along.  This seems an appropriate summation of my first year in Brazil as I reflect upon what I have learned about the country and culture after nearly a year: Brazil is a land of extremes.

Having spent five years in Colombia I was used to many differences other North Americans take a while to adjust to - traffic/driving, punctuality issues, lack of personal space, all-night soirées, etc.  However, even things I thought I was used to got ratcheted up a few notches or I was introduced to new cultural quirks.  That being said, these are the Top 5 Thing I Now Know About Brazil, the first edition:

Breakfast on Ilha Grande

1. What line?  There is no such thing as a line.  Well, there is.  It's the long weaving stretch of people that you just stepped in front of, but whatever. Tudo bom.  It's all good.  You just go ahead and act like you didn't see it.  I've seen this happen to a lesser extent in other parts of Latin America but Brazilians are down-right the grand champions of it.  And it is the one most infuriating cultural thing that I can not seem to let go of.
2. We want...to pump...you up!  Gym are supposed to have trainers.  Or at the very least workers who maintain the machines and pick up after the lazy gym users who can't seem to put things back even remotely close to where they should be.  Gyms in Brazil often come with enough staff to spot everyone simultaneously.  (Slight exaggeration, but there are an over-abundance of trainers at nearly every gym.)  Having a personal trainer in the US is a luxury you need to pay extra for.  Having one here is expected.  It makes for some awkwardness when you show up at an odd time and there are more trainers than people working out.
3. Crabby cashiers. Let's just put it this way: I have chosen my preferred grocery stores - there are four within reasonable walking distance from my apartment - by the amount of disdain the cashier's eyes seem to give me.  It sometimes makes me feel as if they have committed a crime and instead of going to prison, have been shackled to the register.  Also, I apparently put them there.  Ouch.  I'm sorry, but I'm excited about my bag of mangos; I'm going home to make juice.  Don't hate.
4. Spare some change?  No, this isn't the homeless man on the corner.  This every person ever in  Brazil when you pay from something.  Even with small bills.  This has happened to me in Colombia, Peru, Argentina, and Nicaragua.  Where are the smaller denominations being hidden? Quit giving me so many R50 bills at the ATM!  I'm sure there is a logical reason some economist could give me, but honestly I would rather just not have to deal with it.  Again.
5. So, what do you do?  Brazil takes efficiency and knocks it out with a blunt club, stuffs it in a car trunk, and drives it off a pier.  In the spirit of creating more jobs (?) so many places take one task and divide it into many.  You may go to a club and have one person sell you the ticket as you enter the door and another to take it from you in your next step.  There is a small shopping center in the next neighborhood from mine that has many "stores" but only one central register that handles money.  This means if I want an item at two (or more) different "stores" then each one gets rung up on site, I am given a receipt, and my purchase it whisked away by an eager sales person for me to see again once I finally show up at the central check out and hand over my pile of receipts. Oh, but the cashier I pay doesn't give me my purchase; she just takes my money and gives me another consolidated receipt which I take to another sales person who "finds" my purchases and bags them. This example is extreme, but lesser versions of it exist all over this country.

Samba in Campinas

If this list sounds a bit negative, it is not meant to.  Brazil is a lovely place with many wonderful things to see and a deep, complex history.  I hope the next twelve months bring many more moments of exploration, learning, and understanding.  Mostly, I hope to thicken my skin that much more to ready myself for any lines I may encounter.