It is week 4 now. After a rough start, I have succeeded in renting and paying for a nice little kitinete (A small apartment) in the Centro area of Lagoa Santa. Getting the paperwork finished was an ugly ordeal, but now it is over. I put down the money for 6 months, giving me the kitinete until mid-March and that will be nice if I am able to come back, since I will have a place to stay until finding another. If I can come back, maybe I will just stay in the same place, I don´t know. Each day here is a blatantly obvious battle to secure the future, one step at a time. I have been trying not to overstress myself or overwork myself however, since most of the limitations on my success are things I can do nothing about. Citizenship is the biggest barrier. This factor makes it impossible for me to be hired anywhere in a formal manner and also dictates the amount of time I can stay in Brazil. It is a pain in the ass.
So, each day, I try to handle what I can, take advantage of opportunities whenever possible, and when nothing can be done, I kick back and enjoy the life of a tourist, observing and absrobing all I see. Lately, as I have been cruising along here, I have been thinking much about my family and my own life; how it will be in the future and what I will remember later.
Family life in Brazil is much different from anything I have ever seen in the US. I´m sure there are families back in America that operate in a similar fashion, but my family definitely does not and I have come to admire the way many families are here. First off, everyone in a family lives very close together here. Grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, all are usually in close proximity and visitation between all of them is very frequent, often on a daily basis. I constantly compare this family lifestyle with that of the one I have always experienced, with each branch striving to distance itself from its beginning, as if to do otherwise would be a sign of failure, and eventually carve out its own space in the universe. However, I simply compare the two styles objectively and in a circumstance of awarding points to one lifestyle or the other, I would not try to calculate a winner. It is simply a matter of culture. My family is an American family. Families here are Brazilian. At the same time that the family liftestyle here has elements that are universally reputable, I have come to realize that the American family lifestyle produces aspects of great quality as well.
It was not too long ago that the US evolved from a beginning of revolutionary warfare and exploration, mixed with an emerging mentaily of independence, self-reliance, and the notion that life can´t be spent giving a damn about what others say. The Wild West is an iconic era of the culmination of these thoughts. America possesses an inner loner culture, more or less. We carry the memory of the lone cowboy, the lone explorer, and we convert it into things like; riding Harley Davidson´s on the open road, hunting for Elk, going camping, and leaving home for college. It is hard for me to explain to people here in Brazil, why it is that in American movies, when the kid is leaving for college, the family cries. For most people here, they cannot understand why a child would leave home to go far away from there family, ever.
I explain it in comparison to two things. Baby birds getting thrown out of the nest, and the ancient Spartan practice of banishing young boys from home in childhood, so they would be forced to fend for themselves and return as men, or people with the culturally percieved traits of men. I think many of the same inner-principles from these two things have comingled much with the family lifestyle in America. I will only speak for myself now... For my entire life, I have aspired to be like the cowboys, the explorers, the great heroes and leaders who I read about while growing up. I attribute this desire to the culture of my home country, since it is American culture that dictates the viewing of cowboy movies, the availability of the Iliad and Odyssey, the grandeureqsue actions of Cyrano de Bergerac and other stories of these sorts. Furthermore, the US military has a great marketing campagin that constantly bombards the American populace with imagery of what it is to be a true American citizen; strong, fierce, independent. Now, I do not like riding horses and have no desire to fight the Cyclopse or fight in a war, but something from pieces of media like those I have mentioned, has forged me into a person that possesses that uniqely American desire to head off into the unkown to make something for myself.
I also think it has much to do with the history of my family, a history similar to so many other families in America. It is an immigrant story; a story of individuals who left all that they knew to make something fresh, in a distant place. The gold rush, the Great Depression, the Second World War, they all make up part of this big mental picture or portrait rather.
The resulting product instilled in myself, and I think there are many other Americans like me, is that I have a gross abhorance to staying at home, not because I hate my parents or something like that (on the contrary, I always miss them and the rest of my family very much), but because I will not believe I have achieved anything in life until I stand in a home, where every part of it I have acquired by the work on my own body and mind. Furthermore, I aspire to perfect the abilities cherished in olden times before the support of modern comforts and law; The ability to travel anywhere, any distance. The ability to defend oneself. The ability to make a living anywhere, all alone. All with the hope that one day, when I feel I have mastered all of this and reached a point of true success and wisdom, that I can return home to my parents who will then see that their young boy is not a child anymore and is a man who is capable of achieving the same things they did before. All with the hope that one day, I will feel confident in any situation, whether the challenge is economic, physical, or spiritual.
However, I hope that I can eventually mesh together the strengths of all that stems from my upbrining and the strengths of the family lifestyle here. I think, however, that it is something that will just happens as it happens and attempting to plan and execute it as a methodology would be... weird.
On the other note; thinking about the future of my life and how I will remember what life I lived before, I realizend today that, for sure, I will always remember my time here as one of the greatest periods of my life. Young, healthy, in a far-off beautiful place, surrounded by fantanstic people. What an adventure, what a life. I thank heaven each day for what I am experiencing here, but I give my thanks cautiously and reverently, in the knowledge that in life there is a thin line of fate seperating fanstanstic from terrible. I know now, from becoming aware of what I have here, what it is that many old people are thinking about when they sit quietly, staring out the window; the days of youth. When I am 90 years old (I hope I make it so far), I will sit and sip my Scotch (don´t tell the doctor), and I will remember the days I spent here, amidst the smells and the sounds of South America, struggling to work and live, experiencing so many new things.
One thing I have constantly thought about lately is a day when I met a man while doing my laundry in Arcata. He was a skinny, pale, grey-bearded man, wearing a ratty old t-shirt and faded jogging shorts. His appearance was that of homeless person who had quite a bit of experience in that field. He initially approached me with questions about my Macbook. He explained that he had been in the market to buy a new notebook computer and together we discussed the pros and cons of a Mac. We got to talking and as he typed away on his old, 2 inch thick Toshiba notebook, he explained to me that he had once been a millionaire computer programmer. He told me that he had gone to the same high school as Steve Jobs and they had been good friends, but Jobs had turned his back on him, all because he had dated Jobs´s wife in high school. The jealousy was just too much. He told me that he had decided to forget about the computer game and used all his money to travel overland across Asia, India, the MIddle East, and eventually Europe, following some wandering revolution of LSD tripping yoga fanatics. We both laughed excitedly at the awesomeness of his adventure and after, he explained to me that all he had left to show for his money was his car... We sat for a while more as the washing machines turned. I was immediately skeptical of the whole story, but for some reason, it all made so much sense and the reasons for everything were so realistically simple. He was the right age to match his story and definitey had a high level of intelligence. His account of the places he travelled were intimate and outlined in the way that only experience can produce; this tree here and this great bar here.. Not many city names and distances. Only the memories of the eye. The jealousy of Steve Jobs was really the kicker for me. I could totally see it. As I folded my laundry, we parted ways and I watched as this homeless looking man, who had just told me the story of his life, of working on the first modern computers, of walking throught the Valley of Kush and the streets of Beirut, of taking acid the mountains of India, climbed into a gold S500 Mercedes Benz, and drove off.
I stood for a second thinking deeply. Not about whether all he said had been true or not, because for some reason I thought, and to this day I know, that his story was true, but because I realized that one day I might be just like him. I thought about all the places I have ever been, all the things I have ever seen, all the craziness, everything, and I realize that one day, I might be at the laundromate next to Blondie´s in Arcata, telling some suspicious college kid about the things I had done. Growing up in Berkeley, travelling the world, living in Hawaií, China, Brazil... The fights, the parties, the learning, the romance. In the end, I might not have anything to show for it, except for some crazy stories.
So week 4 is going along here. Brazilian independence day was on Teusday, the 7th. I spent the weekend working in the country side, cleaning and waiting tables. I got terrible blisters from playing soccer barefoot and had to get the rest of my exercise rowing a boat around a small lake. The language is starting to come along quite well for me and i am starting to feel the tentacles of permanence emerge from the soil and tug at my body. Concluding my long, cerebral ramble about the pscyhology of American open-road sydrome and crazy people I meet at the laundromat (As Irish once pointed out, they might just think I am also crazy... Maybe I am.. Oh Hell, after seeing "Inception", I really cannot tell if anything is real), I will now give some factual information. So, finding a job here is difficult, but not impossible. To rent an apartment, you will definitely need the borderline babysitting-like assistance of a Brazilian or the help of the company you are working for in Brazil. To rent an aparmtment, sufficient money or not, requires 3 sponsors. To drive here, you driver´s license must be translated and approved by the government, and henceforth, you must carry your ID and traslanted document while driving. I have already erased any idea of owning any type of vehicle requiring documentation. It is a matter of the money and the trouble. Bicycle, bus, and ride begging. That is it.
It is September now and the weather is starting to get both increasingly hot and increasingly wet. Forunately, from living on O´ahu, I have quite a bit of patience and practice when it comes to sweating incessantly while in the rain at the same time. Changing US bills is best when done at a private money changer... They can give you the best exchange rate as long as your willing to go through a process similar to the scene in Desperado where Quentin Tarantino goes through the secret door in the bathroom, led by the Machete guy. As far as getting more cash, trasnferring between banks and extracting from ATM´s will leave you feeling angry and abused, and, although I have not tried it yet, Western Union looks like the best way to go... Also, Western Union can get your money to you here in a few minutes for a nominal fee.
The food, music, and poeple continue to be exceptionally awesome. I have not met one unfriendly person yet, experienced food poisoning, or heard a song that was terrible. It is a wonderful place.
So, each day, I try to handle what I can, take advantage of opportunities whenever possible, and when nothing can be done, I kick back and enjoy the life of a tourist, observing and absrobing all I see. Lately, as I have been cruising along here, I have been thinking much about my family and my own life; how it will be in the future and what I will remember later.
Family life in Brazil is much different from anything I have ever seen in the US. I´m sure there are families back in America that operate in a similar fashion, but my family definitely does not and I have come to admire the way many families are here. First off, everyone in a family lives very close together here. Grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, all are usually in close proximity and visitation between all of them is very frequent, often on a daily basis. I constantly compare this family lifestyle with that of the one I have always experienced, with each branch striving to distance itself from its beginning, as if to do otherwise would be a sign of failure, and eventually carve out its own space in the universe. However, I simply compare the two styles objectively and in a circumstance of awarding points to one lifestyle or the other, I would not try to calculate a winner. It is simply a matter of culture. My family is an American family. Families here are Brazilian. At the same time that the family liftestyle here has elements that are universally reputable, I have come to realize that the American family lifestyle produces aspects of great quality as well.
It was not too long ago that the US evolved from a beginning of revolutionary warfare and exploration, mixed with an emerging mentaily of independence, self-reliance, and the notion that life can´t be spent giving a damn about what others say. The Wild West is an iconic era of the culmination of these thoughts. America possesses an inner loner culture, more or less. We carry the memory of the lone cowboy, the lone explorer, and we convert it into things like; riding Harley Davidson´s on the open road, hunting for Elk, going camping, and leaving home for college. It is hard for me to explain to people here in Brazil, why it is that in American movies, when the kid is leaving for college, the family cries. For most people here, they cannot understand why a child would leave home to go far away from there family, ever.
I explain it in comparison to two things. Baby birds getting thrown out of the nest, and the ancient Spartan practice of banishing young boys from home in childhood, so they would be forced to fend for themselves and return as men, or people with the culturally percieved traits of men. I think many of the same inner-principles from these two things have comingled much with the family lifestyle in America. I will only speak for myself now... For my entire life, I have aspired to be like the cowboys, the explorers, the great heroes and leaders who I read about while growing up. I attribute this desire to the culture of my home country, since it is American culture that dictates the viewing of cowboy movies, the availability of the Iliad and Odyssey, the grandeureqsue actions of Cyrano de Bergerac and other stories of these sorts. Furthermore, the US military has a great marketing campagin that constantly bombards the American populace with imagery of what it is to be a true American citizen; strong, fierce, independent. Now, I do not like riding horses and have no desire to fight the Cyclopse or fight in a war, but something from pieces of media like those I have mentioned, has forged me into a person that possesses that uniqely American desire to head off into the unkown to make something for myself.
I also think it has much to do with the history of my family, a history similar to so many other families in America. It is an immigrant story; a story of individuals who left all that they knew to make something fresh, in a distant place. The gold rush, the Great Depression, the Second World War, they all make up part of this big mental picture or portrait rather.
The resulting product instilled in myself, and I think there are many other Americans like me, is that I have a gross abhorance to staying at home, not because I hate my parents or something like that (on the contrary, I always miss them and the rest of my family very much), but because I will not believe I have achieved anything in life until I stand in a home, where every part of it I have acquired by the work on my own body and mind. Furthermore, I aspire to perfect the abilities cherished in olden times before the support of modern comforts and law; The ability to travel anywhere, any distance. The ability to defend oneself. The ability to make a living anywhere, all alone. All with the hope that one day, when I feel I have mastered all of this and reached a point of true success and wisdom, that I can return home to my parents who will then see that their young boy is not a child anymore and is a man who is capable of achieving the same things they did before. All with the hope that one day, I will feel confident in any situation, whether the challenge is economic, physical, or spiritual.
However, I hope that I can eventually mesh together the strengths of all that stems from my upbrining and the strengths of the family lifestyle here. I think, however, that it is something that will just happens as it happens and attempting to plan and execute it as a methodology would be... weird.
On the other note; thinking about the future of my life and how I will remember what life I lived before, I realizend today that, for sure, I will always remember my time here as one of the greatest periods of my life. Young, healthy, in a far-off beautiful place, surrounded by fantanstic people. What an adventure, what a life. I thank heaven each day for what I am experiencing here, but I give my thanks cautiously and reverently, in the knowledge that in life there is a thin line of fate seperating fanstanstic from terrible. I know now, from becoming aware of what I have here, what it is that many old people are thinking about when they sit quietly, staring out the window; the days of youth. When I am 90 years old (I hope I make it so far), I will sit and sip my Scotch (don´t tell the doctor), and I will remember the days I spent here, amidst the smells and the sounds of South America, struggling to work and live, experiencing so many new things.
One thing I have constantly thought about lately is a day when I met a man while doing my laundry in Arcata. He was a skinny, pale, grey-bearded man, wearing a ratty old t-shirt and faded jogging shorts. His appearance was that of homeless person who had quite a bit of experience in that field. He initially approached me with questions about my Macbook. He explained that he had been in the market to buy a new notebook computer and together we discussed the pros and cons of a Mac. We got to talking and as he typed away on his old, 2 inch thick Toshiba notebook, he explained to me that he had once been a millionaire computer programmer. He told me that he had gone to the same high school as Steve Jobs and they had been good friends, but Jobs had turned his back on him, all because he had dated Jobs´s wife in high school. The jealousy was just too much. He told me that he had decided to forget about the computer game and used all his money to travel overland across Asia, India, the MIddle East, and eventually Europe, following some wandering revolution of LSD tripping yoga fanatics. We both laughed excitedly at the awesomeness of his adventure and after, he explained to me that all he had left to show for his money was his car... We sat for a while more as the washing machines turned. I was immediately skeptical of the whole story, but for some reason, it all made so much sense and the reasons for everything were so realistically simple. He was the right age to match his story and definitey had a high level of intelligence. His account of the places he travelled were intimate and outlined in the way that only experience can produce; this tree here and this great bar here.. Not many city names and distances. Only the memories of the eye. The jealousy of Steve Jobs was really the kicker for me. I could totally see it. As I folded my laundry, we parted ways and I watched as this homeless looking man, who had just told me the story of his life, of working on the first modern computers, of walking throught the Valley of Kush and the streets of Beirut, of taking acid the mountains of India, climbed into a gold S500 Mercedes Benz, and drove off.
I stood for a second thinking deeply. Not about whether all he said had been true or not, because for some reason I thought, and to this day I know, that his story was true, but because I realized that one day I might be just like him. I thought about all the places I have ever been, all the things I have ever seen, all the craziness, everything, and I realize that one day, I might be at the laundromate next to Blondie´s in Arcata, telling some suspicious college kid about the things I had done. Growing up in Berkeley, travelling the world, living in Hawaií, China, Brazil... The fights, the parties, the learning, the romance. In the end, I might not have anything to show for it, except for some crazy stories.
So week 4 is going along here. Brazilian independence day was on Teusday, the 7th. I spent the weekend working in the country side, cleaning and waiting tables. I got terrible blisters from playing soccer barefoot and had to get the rest of my exercise rowing a boat around a small lake. The language is starting to come along quite well for me and i am starting to feel the tentacles of permanence emerge from the soil and tug at my body. Concluding my long, cerebral ramble about the pscyhology of American open-road sydrome and crazy people I meet at the laundromat (As Irish once pointed out, they might just think I am also crazy... Maybe I am.. Oh Hell, after seeing "Inception", I really cannot tell if anything is real), I will now give some factual information. So, finding a job here is difficult, but not impossible. To rent an apartment, you will definitely need the borderline babysitting-like assistance of a Brazilian or the help of the company you are working for in Brazil. To rent an aparmtment, sufficient money or not, requires 3 sponsors. To drive here, you driver´s license must be translated and approved by the government, and henceforth, you must carry your ID and traslanted document while driving. I have already erased any idea of owning any type of vehicle requiring documentation. It is a matter of the money and the trouble. Bicycle, bus, and ride begging. That is it.
It is September now and the weather is starting to get both increasingly hot and increasingly wet. Forunately, from living on O´ahu, I have quite a bit of patience and practice when it comes to sweating incessantly while in the rain at the same time. Changing US bills is best when done at a private money changer... They can give you the best exchange rate as long as your willing to go through a process similar to the scene in Desperado where Quentin Tarantino goes through the secret door in the bathroom, led by the Machete guy. As far as getting more cash, trasnferring between banks and extracting from ATM´s will leave you feeling angry and abused, and, although I have not tried it yet, Western Union looks like the best way to go... Also, Western Union can get your money to you here in a few minutes for a nominal fee.
The food, music, and poeple continue to be exceptionally awesome. I have not met one unfriendly person yet, experienced food poisoning, or heard a song that was terrible. It is a wonderful place.
RSS Feed