Why Are Brazilians Always So Sad?

I wish I had so much more than words to describe saudade. A painter with a brush and canvas may do better. In Temporary Carioca I fought to describe the remarkable range of emotions I had never felt before, yet continue to feel after my six months there. Among those, there is one emotion I can’t get a handle on, saudade.

My first instance of saudade is the time when I heard the wheels lift off the tarmac and thump up underneath the body of the plane. I was startled that I was no longer attached to earth or Rio as the rest of Brazil fell away into the night. I could not turn back. I was now headed toward a distant place that would never recognize me as the same man who had left

I have tried to describe saudade and the best I can come up with is that this Portuguese word confirms a deep emotional state of nostalgic longing for something or someone that one was fond of and which is now lost. The word often carries a fatalist tone; it acknowledges that the object of longing might really never return or be obtained.

Saudade remains a vague and constant desire for something that represents a turning towards the past, or in my case, rarely towards the future. A stronger form of saudade may be felt towards a lost lover as a deep longing or yearning for a relationship which no longer exists.

Saudade may have prompted this writer to begin this blog, even as I was flush with all the amazing things I was to see every day. For I knew that someday I would be far away wishing I had written everything down.

Surely other writers have found themselves in Rio re-energized and re-made after having lost their way in the world only to feel saudade under the weight of knowing they would have to leave it someday.

Temporay Carioca is and was a recollection of places and events that once brought excitement, pleasure and well-being. Even thinking about these events can sometimes trigger the senses and take me back once again to the present, but only for an instant. Often, however, I am reminded these moments keep us locked in a past that no longer exists.  

Perhaps I was just an  intruder in Rio, foolishly in love with something that remains foreign and overwhelming while making me feel at home at the same time.

Perhaps I was just another in-between eccentric who may have endowed Rio de Janeiro with images I’ve collected but never the truth. Perhaps this is saudade.

Cabralia, Bahai


photo by Delma Godoy

Encounter Over Rio

I clearly remember the night of April 25, 2010. I had finished the dishes and put away the food. It was nearly 11:00.  I went out on the veranda of a house in Jardim Botanica, as I did on most warm nights to breathe in the cooler air. The stars and planets seem much closer in Rio. The heavenly sight always stirred me in a way as to make me sleepy. On that particular night the moon was 93% full gibbeous and huge lights shone over Christo's base and washed across the Corcavado. 

But on this night, two red lights blinked against the clear black sky. The brightness of the lights were much the same in scale and distance as Venus. They were high above and I had to crane my neck. They were certainly not aircraft. They were stationary, not darting around or zooming here and there.  But they blinked.

Below these lights I saw a new array of blinking white lights going in a circle under the initial blinking red lights. Then they began to whirl around like a sparkler in a fireworks display. I called to my girlfriend to come out to the  veranda. She had lived in the house for nearly 30 years and often star watched from here. She confirmed what I was seeing and she broke out laughing and calling her friends on the phone. 

Just then the lights began to criss-cross and turn more rapidly in a circle. This was followed by three more blue\white lights appearing below the red lights. The earlier white lights now blinked furiously. Then this display was followed by stationary white lights appearing one …two…three…four…five….all the way down to nine… at the end of a chain. The entire formation was in a straight line and neither moved laterally nor vertically. By now it was evident we were watching something beyond human.

  

We stood on the veranda breathless and enchanted, in awe and aware of something marvelous. We dared not take our eyes away. At 11:10, the white light on the very bottom of the cosmic neckless went dark. Then one by one each of the white lights slowly went dark from bottom to top. The white circling fireworks stopped. Each of The  rapidly blinking red and white lights went out, and finally only two, the original red lights remained. Then they, too, went dark.

Then it was over. 

Later we scoured the Internet to see if there were any other sightings around Rio -- and there are hundreds of new sitings each week in Brazil -- but nothing similar to what we had encountered. We looked for news reports. We had seen something inexplicable, and the impact was eerie. We needed confirmation.

Over the next week there was a meteor shower from the Pleiades but this display was feckless, distant and cold compared to what we had seen.

Ironically, it was on April 25 that Stephen Hawking’s documentary on alien life appeared on television. He discounted the idea that we will one day make contact with aliens. He said that a superior life form would simply not recognize us as anything but inferior life forms. Or worse, they might think we were a food source.

Also, that day,Arthur C. Clark was quoted as saying that making contact with aliens would be made more difficult for us because their advanced technology would be so superior that we could not possibly perceive their advanced technology as anything  "indistinguishable from magic".

And magic it was.

This video was taken in 2012 in Brazil and bears a sriking resemblance to our siting.

Crespucolo

Crespucolo was introduced to me at the beach. The word is used as a term describing the time after sunset and just before twilight. It is a time when the sun leaves the day to the evening. The sky reflects its light on the plazas, porticos and the still waters off the beach. And so much more.

 I also like to think of crespucolo as an attitude that is singularly carioca. The concept itself is something learned over a lifetime. It is like a persistent errant trickster who flaunts the rules and someone who cannot keep promises. 

There are people who are ardent watchers of crespucolo. They watch it unfold and yield its secret across a pallet rich in yellow, gold and pink purple sky, with a flash of indigo and red for the Carnaval effect. Each scene is a unique brush stroke within a delicate touch. There is nothing habitual or learned or sponsored.There is never any hurry.

I watch and wrap my feet in the sand, still warm. I let a cold wave wash the feet that brought me here. I start to leave and am told I am going too soon. I am pulled back by a hand. She shakes her head and tells me it would be a pity to leave so early. I would miss the final act and the encore. It is never the same.

There is something to be said about the waiting in anticipation and pausing for a final glimpse of the day. True to its promise I was surprised. I allowed myself to enjoy the significance of being a watcher, and now I am a temporary member of a club of people who strive to bring richer values to the canvas of life.

The scene continues to play out through the stages. I hear secondary sounds emerging from the night. I long for another moment like the last, but it is gone. I will come back someday with a strong sense that I have been away too long.

A Perfect Storm Threatens to Kill A Lagoon in Rio

At the beginning of autumn in the southern hemisphere, I walk with minha querida hand in hand around the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas in Zona Sul. The Lagoa is a constant source of inspiration since my arrival. Its mirror-like calm offers solitude amongst so much noise. The placid water stills the frenzy of the cars crowding the streets. 

Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas

When the Portuguese arrived in the late 1500s, the local Tamoios called the lagoa Piraguá (motionless water). Later, the Portuguese landowners attempted to farm sugar cane on its banks with help from the tribes. Legend tells us that the farmers insisted on converting the natives to Christianity and making the natives wear clothing. They preferred not to and left. In any event, the farms never took root.

In the 1600s the lagoon earned its present name with the marriage of a local bride to a cavalry officer, Rodrigo de Freitas. Presumably the dashing young captain walked hand in hand with his intended on moonlit nights.

 photo by Delma Godoy 
gassa e logoa

Today, the lagoon serves as a focal point and forms the nexus of several rivers flowing from surrounding underground rivers fed from giant waterfalls in the hills. From the lagoon water spills out past Ipanema to the open sea.

On all sides of its 8k circumference, the lagoon supports a vast recreational community in one of the most densely packed cities on the planet. Each day thousands of runners, walkers, bikers and those on a promenade use every inch of the space. There are private nautical clubs, sports courts and an array of cafes, along with a busy heliport. Since Christmas 1995, a monumental illuminated Christmas tree floats across the mirror d'água, drawing thousands of spectators each night during Christmas.

What many paintings and tourist photographs do not capture is the severe stagnation and pollution below the water line. 

This is a longstanding problem. In 1922, it took the Centenary of the Independence to stir enough local interest to renew the lagoon and solve the problem. Inevitably, the lagoon was rebuilt but then it became severely polluted once again over the decades of government negligence. In the 1960s  a favela grew up along its banks until a fire destroyed it.  Developers moved in with landfill and began to build new luxury apartments and roads.

More construction is set to take place now that the lagoon is expected to become a jewel in the crown during the Summer Games in 2016. This is good news for the private clubs that have established themselves on the lagoon, including the Flamengo Club, the Brazilian Jockey Club, the Garden of Alah and the Naval Club on the island of the Piraquê.

Though a fisherman's colony barely survives near the edges - creating an illusion that all is well in the water -  the lagoon is a victim of chronic toxic waste.

Soon after Carnaval 2010, the lagoon began to smell badly. Days later, scores of boats appeared on the water with city workers pulling out 500-800 tons of dead fish. Early reports from the wildlife managers of the lagoon suggested that too much seaweed had robbed the water of oxygen during a period of high temperatures.

After this event, the water of the lagoon overrode its banks during the Easter floods, killing more fish and waterfowl. The lagoon could not revive itself. Nature had been overcome by seepage from old pipes pushing more contaminants into the sludge of the lagoon. The private clubs, restaurants and concessionaires have all contributed by dumping pesticides and other chemicals to keep their grasses and bushes green and bugs at a distance from humans. All it took, perhaps, was a record four degree rise in temperatures over the summer to set off the chain reaction.

The question to ponder for many who frequent the lagoon today: Would you let your child swim in the same water that killed thousands of fish? Would you eat a fish from the lagoon? If not, why should a bird expect to survive here?

 photo by Delma Godoy  

As I walk around the lagoon I see fewer waterfowl lining the docks. There are fewer flights of ducks and hawks. Only the scavenger birds fly now.  If you hear the call of a heron, count yourself lucky. When the fish and birds are gone, you are the only one left on the food chain.

A Touch of Brazilian Magic

Throughout my stay in Rio I found that there was rarely a day I did not see or hear a futbol being kicked somewhere. All too often I could hear players yelling from a nearby club where balls bounced heavily on a concrete wall next to our bedroom.

Occasionally on the street I would run across a ball that had been kicked over a fence from a nearby sandlot. Wearing sandals I took my time kicking it back. At 40 Celsius I was contented to retrieve balls. Sometimes a ball found its way through a crowd at Ipanema beach, arriving at my feet, enticing the soccer player within to show his stuff. “Come on, man.” Instead I put a foot to the ball and made a simple pass to a dozen or more young people who had a lifetime of show-stopping heroics ahead of them.

Wayward soccer balls have always had a way of finding me, then urging me to come back to the sport if only for a moment of reflected glory. I had kicked makeshift balls made of rubber and clothing strung together, playing on a makeshift field near a village on the way to Mt. Everest in Nepal. Once I found a game in Guatemala City when a team needed a player to even a side. In Mexico at high elevation I played a portion of a game before the altitude got to me and they made me a referee for the rest of the game. In England I played games on a village road well into the night with two brothers keen to have someone to play with. As a youth in Colorado, decades before soccer became popular, I kicked a ball against walls and fences as a way of seeking equanimity in a turbulent world of my own making.

One night while walking along a beach in Cabraglia in the state of Bahai, I came across a game being played on a worn tennis court. The players wore old tennis shoes and some played barefoot, yet their skills were well advanced at a tender age. Then extraordinarily an errant ball flew into the air and bounced well out of bounds and came to a stop on the sand, confronting me. Giant waves from the Atlantic crashed not a few meters away in the last light of day. This particular ball dared me to take it ---skillfully. The young men were watching. I knew that local custom demands that when a ball arrives it is imperative to control it with style. Wearing sandals I flipped the ball on my right foot. Then I put the ball to my left foot and guided the ball back along the pavement, bringing it back to the eager players anxious to get on with their game.

I coveted the moments. This was no ordinary ball. It was the sum of all those feet that had touched it over its time. I passed on my inside left foot to their coach standing on the sideline 20 meters away. He nodded as he guided the ball effortlessly from his foot, up his leg as if it were on a string, bounced it on his knee and in mid-air, shot it flying back to the young men. The show was as much for me as for the players. 

With a respectful glint in our eyes two old warriors shared a touch of Brazilian magic with the future, the present and the past.

 Photo by Delma Godoy

Along a beach in Cabraglia

Lula's Spending Spree Catches Up To Brazil

Rousseff 's & Lula's Big Secret

Over the past couple of years President Lula been active on a farewell tour of the world proclaiming new social programs he sponsored in the name of international charity and goodwill. Lula hopes the history books will be kind to him.

Subsequently, he lent Fidel Castro billions of Reals to rebuild Cuba’s crumbling cities. Lula gave Reals to build roads in Bolivia and spent billions more in Venezuela so Hugo Chavez could rebuild the transportation system. Lula also forgave 700 billion in defaulted loans to several African states.

While he was on his multiple worldwide tours he was also brokering trade agreements, including business deals to bring nuclear energy to Brazil, as well as creating more hydroelectric dams in the Amazon. He made an agreement with the Russian space program for future space exploration. In all of these agreements, Lula rarely disclosed the amount or terms of these deals to his government.

Claiming national security reasons for his fiscal privacy, Lula invoked medidas provisórias, a measure which would allow him to act on behalf of the government without Congressional approval. Yet, legislators were concerned, because medidas provisórias was mandated by the Constitution only to be used as a tool by the executive branch to assist in making quick decisions in times of emergencies.

Yet, while Lula was traveling and proclaiming Brazil’s bright economic future, he never spoke about any “economic emergency” in Brazil. In fact, Lula was presenting Brazil’s economic miracle to the world in the best possible light. He even used the measure to improve the publicity concerning a Formula One race being held in Sao Paulo.

In the past, medidas provisórias was used by former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso in his first term just three times. The Real was under stress and devaluing during a time of high inflation. President Cardoso used the measure to bypass Congress to stabilize the Real using medidas provisórias. His quick actions eventually created the bedrock that would lift Brazil into prominence as a world economic power.

 Former President Cardoso

Lula, who led the opposition against Cardoso at the time, charges that Cardoso was becoming a dictator. Years later, Lula adopted Cardoso's economic framework himself and used the controversial measure 16 times in his first term. Since then, as president, Lula has used the measure on average of four times a month.

As much as Lula tried to hide his government’s fiscal management, it eventually came to the surface near the beginning of Lula’s second term on April 7, 2006. Minister Dilma Rousseff, acting on behalf of Lula’s government, made a decision not to loan VARIG, the beleaguered national airline, any more money to operate. Lula was busy telling everyone else in the world about Brazil’s economic muscle while Rousseff was secretly telling VARIG Lula could no longer support the company because the government did not have the money. VARIG, a respected airline, which dates back to the origins of aviation, was out of business, and 11,000 jobs were lost in Brazil. At the same time, Lula came up with $R 170 million to pay to international bankers as interest on overdue loans.

Of course, much of this information is conjecture and based on rumors and speculation. This is because the Lula government was operating in violation of the government’s own fiscal transparency laws. The media never complained and few judges would go against Lula in the courts and investigate these claims of corruption. And nothing changed. To Lula, there was simply no reason for transparency simply because he did not feel he was accountable.

Initially, there was protest led by Jose Serra, an opponent who had lost to Lula in 2002 and again in 2006. Serra called for an investigation by the Judiciary saying that Lula’s financial chicanery was a clear violation of the Constitution. Without the support of the Lula-dominated media, the protest came to naught.

On the eve of the 2010 election, the powerful Lula government propaganda machine continues to promise a prosperous future that would be fueled by vast oil deposits, nuclear power generation and hydro projects in the Amazon. However, the world is watching closely. The experts understand that Brazil’s promise is not immediate. It could take another two decades before Brazil could generate enough electricity to determine affordable market prices and reasonable costs to the average consumer. In some quarters, Lula’s promises for immediate revenues are sounding hollow.

Currently, much of Brazil’s economy remains based on its exports, but the country no longer has the leverage it once had because inflation within Brazil is hurting foreign sales with higher costs. Traditional revenues from its cash crops are slumping as the worldwide recession continues to linger, and other countries such as Vietnam, China, Turkey and India continue to batter Brazil with competitive pricing.

 Presidential Candidate

José Serra

José Serra and Dilma Rousseff may never meet in an actual debate. If they did, a couple of questions would determine each candidate’s approach to the next government’s economic policies: How will Brazil pay its bills? If Brazil were to default on its loans, what will the government do?

This election is not about the economy, but it should be. Perhaps this is why former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso decided to make a rare appearance recently on the Internet. Events have reached such a critical moment that Cardoso felt it was necessary to come out of retirement to warn his countrymen of the impending economic catastrophe that awaits the next government.

Cardoso, who is the architect to bring stability to the Real, led a government which went on to lead Brazil’s booming economy into the new century. Cardoso warns that the present government has acted for far too long as if it were making simple transactions. He says the matter is not about fiscal privacy. It is about disrespecting democracy. By continuing to circumvent the Constitution and ignoring the laws of Congress the “current president” has shamefully abused the voters and the election process. There will be serious economic consequences, he adds.

By the time of the elections, the voters themselves will be feeling the pinch of an economy gone sour. All across Brazil, the department stores in shopping malls are losing retailers. Restaurants are closing and cultural events are losing attendance. Auto sales are decreasing while basic costs like grocery items are increasing daily. Imported goods are fueling inflation. The roads are still not fixed in Rio and in other large cities more and more people are out of work incapable of paying their bills. Little or no work has actually begun on the large number of ambitious infrastructure projects promised to be completed for the 2014 World Cup or the 2016 Summer Olympiad.

What if Brazil does not have the money?

Brazilians facing a strange election

President Lula

On October 3, 2010 a presidential election will begin in Brazil. It will be the most important election in the country’s history. At stake is the country’s economic growth, its social policies, its civic institutions and democracy itself.

The outgoing President Lula will leave office basking in unprecedented popularity, backed by the powerful media elites he pretends to despise.

Harboring a long-standing problem with alcohol, Lula spent more time traveling than running the country. He made some 102 travels amounting to 382 days out of the country and 602 days away from Brasilia, the country’s capitol. Lula spent 984 days out of the Palace of the President. In total he spent nearly 82 percent of his mandate of 1,201 days traveling instead of governing the country.

Lula is inarticulate, choosing base words and crude antics when he faces opponents. Many educated people say his Portuguese is poor, and his grasp of the language is seldom above a grammar school level. Yet, Lula has effectively positioned himself as a peasant fighting the elites to make up for his intellectual defects.

Lula is nothing if not a showman. He did not wait to leave office to introduce a motion picture of his life in October of 2009. In the bio-pic, Lula, he was portrayed as a poor boy rising to the most powerful position in the country.

During Lula’s past eight years as president, he has based his economic and social policies on those of his predecessor, former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the man who first brought stability to the newly democratized Brazil. The Lula government, however, has claimed all credit for Brazil’s growing economy and has blamed the country’s faults on Cardoso’s previous administration.

At the same time, Lula’s government has spent ten times more than the Cardoso government had spent in its two terms. His excessive spending has drawn little criticism, as both houses of Congress willingly grant the president any amount he wishes.

Should he face any serious opposition for his policies, Lula will use secretive executive powers to circumvent the constitutional process if necessary. Recently he over-ruled the Judiciary when several judges made court decisions that opposed the construction of the Bel Monte damn. Not only has this caused a constitutional crisis that is still unresolved but the construction continues under a cloud of jurisdictional confusion.

Perhaps his most notable impact was made recently when he announced Dilma Rousseff as his successor. This in itself should have been a controversy, but Lula’s control of the media has made her untouchable to complaints. A recent law was passed in Congress forbidding any criticism or unnecessary scrutiny of the candidates for this election, including satire. Rousseff’s opponents now must debate her with their hands tied by executive order of the president.

Heir apparent, Dilma Rousseff

Ms. Rousseff, though intelligent, is not a crafty debater and often is perceived as clumsy. In response, the election debates are highly orchestrated. In some cases the videotapes are heavily edited to make her appear as the preferred candidate before they are released to the mainstream media. She is never available for sound bites or spontaneous discussions among the public or media.

Rousseff is a woman who has been plucked out of nowhere to be the next president of Brazil. She is paraded around by Lula as his successor and all but crowned as the new president. Lula claims she is winning the election by a margin of 50 percent to 29 percent in the polls.

All that is known about her is that she has some minor legislative experience and did not rise from the judiciary. She does not have a strong enough power base to become a senator and her legislative goals are murky.

At times, Rouseff appears to some skeptics as a novelistic character whose past has been rewritten to fit the times and circumstances. She has prospered under the wing of her mentor, Lula. She has steadily moved up through government as an appointed minister and has, like Lula,  taken on the guise of a misunderstood public servant; just another common person who has made good.

But even as her controlled election campaign continues unopposed, there is more evidence she was a middle class radical who later became a terrorist. Much of her history been lost under a new narrative created for her by the state-controlled media: This new Dilma has been redeemed and resurrected as a better person. This is a popular theme in a country dominated by Catholics.

Rousseff, herself, has refused to discuss her redemption or her mistakes of the past with any credibility. Rather, she has undergone several makeovers, softening her once unpolished and frumpy public image into that of a modern, well-to-do elitist on the move up.

Often, her color photos appear on the fashion magazines as a perky government leader. In this capacity she is interviewed more about her choice of toe nail polish than she is of her beliefs about her priorities for governing 290 million people.

While she has been effectively sheltered by Lula, from time to time reports emerge from the Internet that reveal a different Dilma Rousseff.

These reports document her association with guerilla groups in the 60s and 70s, when she was involved in murders, bombings, assassinations and bank robberies. Most notably, it has been reported that she was briefly imprisoned and was released without receiving the same treatment as her conspirators, who suffered much longer prison terms and torture. Some reports indicate that she took more than R$2.5 million from a bank robbery and used it to fund her fledgling political career.

 Dilma the guerilla

Most of these claims are disregarded by the mainstream media. The opposition has only hinted of a dark past with few specifics. In any event, there is no public outcry for a full investigation about Rousseff’s past.

The only stain on her rise to power may have happened during the first week of September when she appeared at a political rally with Lula. When she came out the crowd continued to cheer: “Lula, Lula, Lula” . Lula gloated despite efforts of the organizers to make the crowd yell “Dilma, Dilma, Dilma”.

It may be that her only opponent in the election will be Lula himself, who is showing signs of reluctance about leaving office. He seems unwilling to relinquish his place in history to his successor. This makes many in Brazil fearful that Rousseff will be the puppet and Lula will pull the strings. This reminds many of a well meaning politician in Venezuela who promised democracy and turned it into tyranny: Hugo Chavez.