Good news on climate change from the Southern Hemisphere

"Brazil, Alarmed, Reconsiders Policy on Climate Change." This morning's NY Times reports that there are signs of change in the Brazilian government's resistance to managing deforestation in the Amazonian rain forest.

This week's schedule

Today, in about 30 minutes in fact, Angela is driving me to Campina Grande, where I will give a talk to the faculty at the Universidade Federal de Campina Grande tomorrow morning at 8:30 am. It's a several hour drive north, in the state of Paraíba. Here's a nifty map of Brazil that allows you to select the state, region, and city. Follow the bread-crumbs to find different parts of Brazil.

So it will be a busy week, with class on Tuesday, another workshop-presentation to the ESL undergraduates on Wednesday, and class on Thursday.

I have read the dozen student papers that were submitted last week, responding to my request that they describe the probable antecedent genres of some genre with which they were familiar. There were a number of interesting discussions, of chat-room classes, of "asking-for-alms" papers passed out on busses, of fairy tales, the student seminar presentation, the "ping-pong" journalistic interview, and others. Some were difficult to read because of the language problem. Two were submitted in Portuguese, and I ran them through Apple's Sherlock translation, which produced texts that were worse than the worst student attempt at English. But the level of discussion and analysis was generally quite rewarding.

Olinda

Yesterday, Abuêndia Peixoto Pinto, one of Angela's colleagues who teaches English and psycholingistics and works with the undergraduate teacher-preparation program, took me on an outing. We went to Olinda, the colonial town just north of Recife. Olinda was settled in 1537 by the Portuguese and conquered by the Dutch in 1630, who were in this area for about 30 years (it was the Dutch who built Recife, moving their operations from the hill on which Olinda sits down to the rivermouth and harbor site that became Recife). You can still see some Dutch influence in the domestic architecture of the old part of Olinda. There are numerous churches dating to the 16th and 17th centuries, an old slave market (which has been turned into a craft market for tourists), and lovely views from various vantages and praças (plazas) on the hill.

Abuêndia and I had a snack of tapioca (this time com coco, with coconut) at the praça near the Catedral da Sé (the seat of the archbishop of Pernambuco) and were serenaded by two repentistas, shown in the photograph. Repentista singing is a tradition of on-the-spot improvisation characteristic of the Pernambuco region. Abuêndia told me that they were describing us as two "intellectual ladies" with contrasting color of hair eating our tapioca snacks, etc. The singing was passed back and forth from one to another, and the melody was repetitious and chant-like. She seemed a bit annoyed at them, so they may have been saying other things, as well. Or perhaps she was annoyed because you have to pay them before they will go away.

There were many traditional crafts for sale (as well as cheap tourist goods)—costumed figurines from the carnaval, which is a huge deal here, jewelry made from local seeds and other plant materials, lace and embroidery, wood carving, and others. One of the most common is wood carvings of rows of houses painted in bright colors, representing the houses on the steep and winding cobblestone streets of the old part of Olinda. I bought one of these and the craftsman told me it was made from the bark of the cajá tree, harvested in a nondestructive way (I believed him, but have no corroboration). The material is light and cork-like and, he said, easy to carve.

Politics in the Amazon

This story from the NY Times today, "In the Amazon: Conservation or Colonialism?" reports on controversies over conservation efforts in the Amazon rain forest. It's a good reminder that things can look different to people in the southern hemisphere, that Brazilian politics have their own complications, and that the loss of U.S. credibility has consequences far beyond Iraq.

A local phenomenon

Yesterday, Angela decided it was the day to take me to the museum-workshop of Francisco Brennand, an artist born in Recife who has achieved a worldwide reputation. He works primarily in ceramics but is also an accomplished painter. He comes from a prominent local family that owned a ceramics factory, producing the tile that is ubiquitous in floors, walls, kitchens, bathrooms, as well as other ceramic products. The factory has moved elsewhere and for over 30 years Francisco has converted the factory into his workshop and gallery, producing an amazing environment of tile and sculpture. It's impossible to describe--"fecund" is a good start--but his website shows many of the structures and objects to great effect, and the photo below puts me into the picture. Eggs are a recurrent theme.

The meal described in the previous entry was at the cafe at the Brennand museum, and the plates on which we were served were of his design, made in his workshop. You can purchase tableware like this or floor and wall tiles for your home—for a significant price.

Food note 2

One of the common ways of using the abundant fruit of Brazil is in fresh fruit drinks. Here's a picture of a drink made from pineapple and mint (abacaxi com hortelã, accent on the last syllable of both words). I think you just toss the ingredients into a blender with more or less sugar. I've had this twice, and it's very refreshing. I've also had one made from the acerola fruit, a small red fruit very high in vitamin C (this one really does need some sugar, but the abacaxi com hortelã does not).

The sandwich here is carne seco (sun dried meat), a common product of Pernambuco.

The picture below is of the appetizer we had for this lunch, called tapioca. It's a kind of quesadilla, with a crust made from tapioca flour and filled with cheese (or other ingredients, such as tomatoes and onions). Not what Americans who remember school lunches in the 1950s and 60s think of as tapioca. Note the plate in this picture. I'll write about that later. (I missed a chance to take a picture of a seafood stew last Sunday, a moqueca, characteristic of the Bahía area south of here.)

On being helpless

Last night I did Lesson 8 (of 16) of Pimsleur's Portuguese I, introductory conversation. We finally got to two important sentences: "I want a beer" and "Where is the bathroom?" The other useful statement I've learned from this course and have actually used successfully is "I don't speak Portuguese."

I am frustratingly dependent on Angela for many practical issues. For example, the hotel sends someone in every day to clean (washes the dishes, makes the bed, sweeps the floor), but the sheets on the bed and the towels in the bathroom weren't changed after a week. So I put the dirty towels on the floor and the clean sheets, which someone had thoughtfully delivered, on the bed. The housekeeper changed the bed and put the dirty sheets on the floor with the towels. Who is supposed to wash the linens? This is something I can't negotiate in Portuguese, so Angela is trying to straighten things out between the hotel, the rental agent (a totally separate person), and the university (who is supposed to be paying the rental agent).

Other little things I have had to negotiate by myself: how to open the milk carton (no instructions, no "affordances"), how to flush the toilet (again, not totally obvious!), how to get and pay for food in the cafeteria in the hotel (that's one where I could watch others and learn from them).

Music notes

I haven't heard any live music here, but I hear quite a bit of recorded music—every time one of the CD-monger carts goes down the street there's a snatch of something at high volume. I've purchased several CDs in bookstores that Angela has taken me to (she's had university-related errands to run and has taken me along). Two bookstores are in the huge shopping center called Shopping Recife and we went to another yesterday in a small shopping center that's been built in the old customs-house of the port in the old part of the city.

All the bookstores have a feature in the music areas that I've not seen in stores in the US. It's a set of headphones attached to a scanner that will read the barcode on the CD package and play 30-sec samples from each track on the CD for, apparently, any CD in the inventory that you pick up. They sell imported music from the US and Europe, but an important category is what they call MPB (Music Popular do Brasil). Here you find samba, choro, forró, bossa nova, and many other traditional and contemporary styles that I can't remember.

I've purchased a collection of choro, which is a "lament" with more Portuguese than African roots, played by guitars and other stringed instruments; a collection of samba standards performed by Beth Caravalho, apparently the best samba singer ever; a disk of music from the Pernambuco region by Antonio Nóbrega, a Recife native; a collection of the best of Caetano Veloso (the only Brazilian musician I'd really heard of before I came, except for Jobim); and some jazz by Alberto Rosenblit. I also have a collection of the best of Elis Regina, which Angela left for me when I moved into the apartment here.

Walking the beach

I've taken several walks along the beach in the week that I've been here. The entire coastline in the Recife area is extensively built up, with apartments and hotels lining the beachfront. Most buildings are 12–20 stories high, many quite attractive, but the newer ones, including many under construction, run 30 stories and more. In the Boa Viagem area where I am, the buildings are all across the street from the beach, leaving the water side as an extensive, linear public park with a wide walkway between the street and the sand. In some places the beach is quite wide, with palms and other trees, as well as shrubs and groundcover before the sand begins, as well as playgrounds, tennis courts, seating areas, public showers and bathrooms. There are also sets of chin-up bars, push-up bars, and varying inclined concrete pads for sit-ups. People (well, young men) use these. South of my hotel, the beach becomes narrow and sometimes steep and in some places has been hardened with boulders to prevent further erosion.

In the late afternoons when I've been out, there are people of all ages, shapes, colors, degrees of fitness, and degrees of prosperity on the walkway (in Spanish this would be called a paseo, but I don't know the Portuguese equivalent). Most people seem to be Brazilians--at least I feel like the most conspicuous gringa, though there are a few other people who are pale of skin and hair. Many are dressed in athletic clothing and are bent on exercise, others stroll and talk, some ogle the others, and some are aiming to sell food, drink, or CDs. Children skate and skateboard, old men play dominoes, and where the beach is wide enough there are games of soccer and volleyball. Every several hundred yards there's a concrete bungalow with a circular thatched roof that serves as a food concession, selling fresh coconut milk in the coconut, soft drinks and liquor, and packaged snacks. Other entrepreneurs with pushcarts sell fresh peeled oranges, roasted corn, and things I don't recognize.

The walkway is lined with trees—the only one I recognize is the coconut palm. There is some kind of tree with broad leathery leaves that remind me a bit of southern magnolia leaves, though the tree shape is very different. There are some lovely trees that look at first like pines, with long, feathery needles, but on closer look, the needles are segmented like those of a cypress and the bark has a shredded texture, also like cypress.

I do not have any pictures of the beachfront because I'm afraid to bring my camera with me. I've been advised not to take anything I don't want to lose. I haven't seen any skullduggery, nor have I felt at all threatened, but given what my students were talking about the other day, as well as the advice from Angela and Judith, I won't get any pictures until I have company for one of my walks.

Food note

Here's a delicious snack or dessert—fresh papaya with lime juice. The drink beside it is characteristically Brazilian, a soft drink called guaraná, made from an Amazonian fruit. It's a little on the sweet side, but very refreshing. Actually, now that I find the Guaraná home page (there had to be one, didn't there?), I see that the berry has more caffeine than coffee beans do. I've been drinking more caffeinated coffee here than usual (decaff is impossible to find), and though I've had only one or two of these guaraná drinks, I see I'll have to be careful about it because I routinely have difficulty sleeping and don't need to make things worse.

Another way to learn Portuguese

The first few days I was connected to the internet here, everything looked the way it always does. But then, after several days of being connected through the hotel's ISP, providers like Google and Blogger seem to have decided that I speak Portuguese, so I am now seeing the Portuguese interfaces.


Also, the Windows computer in the office I'm using at the university (borrowed from someone who's not around) speaks Portuguese. As a Mac user, I find Windows confusing even in English. Word's spell-checker objects to almost every English word, and the auto-correct feature insisted on turning "an" into "na," which means "in the" before a feminine noun.

And then there's the keyboard. None of the punctuation marks are where they're supposed to be because of the keys for Portuguese diacritical marks, and the shift keys and delete keys are just out of reach, so keyboarding is pretty frustrating.

What I'm learning from my students

Tuesday's plane crash in São Paulo is on everyone's mind here. The newspapers on Wednesday all had enormous front-page photos of the conflagration, and there's much talk about blame and the lack of political will to improve the air traffic system. I have not watched any television here (this is a habit I brought from home), but I imagine it's a major preoccupation on tv, as well. Here are some follow-up stories from the New York Times and BBC.

Yesterday in class, students were giving group reports in which they used Bitzer's vocabulary to identify recurrent situations in Brazil and genres associated with them. Two of the four groups chose aircraft accidents. Other situations they discussed included assault and armed robbery, social violence, and various inadequacies of the public health system in Brazil. Once the trend of the discussion became clear, one student noted that it would be surprising if I ever came back to Brazil. Just to round out the selection of topics, others included the opening of the Pan American Games in Rio last Saturday and the job application and graduate school application processes. But it was impossible to miss the trend--there was some cynicism about the prospects for improvement but mostly a dissatisfaction that comes from high expectations and pride in their country.

Interesting (to me) facts about Portuguese

The name of the city I'm in, Recife, means "reef" in Portuguese, and there are dark stony reefs in the ocean that show at low tide from my hotel window—you can see the reef in the photo. They stretch along parts of this area of the coast. It is apparently safe to go swimming inside the reef, but not outside, and not in areas where there are no reefs, because of the danger of shark attacks. Along the beach, there are signs at regular intervals warning about this, with the words "perigo," danger, and "tubarão," which I infer to mean shark. This is interesting because the other city in Brazil I'll be visiting later, where the genre conference is being held in August, is the city of Tubarão.

Finally, I learned that the Japanese word for thank you, "arigato," which I learned when I was in Japan in June, is derived from the Portuguese for thank you, "obrigado/a" (as in obliged, with the common l–r substitution that Portuguese makes from other Romance languages). Apparently this word was adopted from the Portuguese explorers of the 16th century because the Japanese had no word for thank you.

Time to listen to my next lesson in conversational Portuguese.

Plane crash in São Paulo

Here's an alarming report from the New York Times about a plane crash in São Paulo last night. The domestic airline industry and air traffic control have been in some turmoil recently. This is not the airport where I landed on Sunday (there are several in São Paulo) but it is the airline I flew from SP to Recife and on which I will return.

Getting this started

My adventure in international teaching started today, with the first meeting of my class at the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco in Recife, Brazil. The course, "Where Do Genres Come From?" is a special winter offering by the Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras (PPGL) in the Centro de Artes e Comunicação, that is, the graduate program in letters, which includes both literature and linguistics and has a strong emphasis on teacher preparation and pedagogical research. I have students in both master's and doctoral programs. We meet from 2:00-5:00 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays for four weeks.

The academic schedule here in the southern hemisphere has a short session in mid-July between the two main semesters, May-June and August-November. My course is a special offering with the major concession that I teach in English, since I know almost no Portuguese. I have about 20 students and several auditors, many of whom teach English as a second language and all of whom have studied English.

I arrived in Recife two days ago, Sunday afternoon, after about a 24-hour journey: Raleigh to Miami to São Paulo to Recife. The big news for me on Saturday when I started was that I finally got the upgrade to business class on the international flight that had been requested months ago, and it included an upgrade to first class on the Raleigh-to-Miami flight. In business class, they fed us very well and it was actually possible to sleep on the overnight flight. In tourist class, there was beverage service and snacks for sale.

Recife is about 8º south of the equator, right on the coast, and winter here is about 25–30ºC, breezy, sunny, and somewhat humid. It's two time zones east of Eastern, but with no daylight savings, it's only one hour earlier. The sun sets at 5:15 or so and it's pitch-dark by 6:00. There is no lingering twilight (or dawn, probably, but I haven't watched it) because of the latitude, and I am reminded of the line from Kipling's "Mandalay" (ok, I googled this to be sure) that "the dawn comes up like thunder." In this case it would be that the dark comes down like thunder.

I have a small sixth-floor apartment in a high-rise residential hotel a block from the beach, with an ocean view between two other high-rises that are right on the beach. There are two AC units, but I prefer to leave the windows open to the breeze and the street noises, which include music, traffic, voices, and--Sunday night during and after the Argentina–Brazil soccer game—a lot of whooping and hollering and firecrackers. And always behind everything else, the sound of the surf.

I am driven around by my academic host, Professor Angela Dionisio, and another colleague, Professor Judith Hoffnagel. They have helped me purchase groceries, taken me to restaurants, and provided translation at crucial moments. I arrived back at the apartment this evening after 5:30 to discover that the power was out, apparently just in my room, and it took some doing for the hotel people and me to get this resolved with very little language in common. My rusty Spanish helped a little, and I am trying to get my ears used to the different phonetic system in Portuguese and the ways that cognates work.

I was slower getting this started than I had intended, and already many details that seemed fascinating when they happened are old news to me now, but it's time to quit for now. I had originally intended to publish this blog on the NC State University blog server, but have not been able to login there (possibly because of the foreign ISP?) and my messages to the Help desk have not been acknowledged (again, possibly they look like spam).