A few days earlier, I had bought some stamps at the Correios (post office) at the mall. I had bought only one postcard, but a friend had given us a welcome bag when we landed, which included a few postcards along with a map, a pen, and a nice notepad.
By now, I've actually seen all the places shown on the postcards, so I can send them in good conscience. I fill out a bunch of postcards, including to my physical therapist who has helped to make the trip possible. I've been walking and standing for hours per day, and my knee has held up admirably.
The weather has turned sunny again after some downpours the last four or five days. The kids and Michele will head to the beach while I run some errands.
I need more stamps for some additional postcards, and we've nearly burned through both our Reais and greenbacks.
I spend R$15 of my last R$100 on airmail stamps for postcards. I am confident I can get money today, I just know it.
I head to our bank at the mall ("shopping"), theoretically owned by the same (Spanish) bank that took over my US branch. A few days ago we had no luck with various ATMs. If I can't get cash today, I'll have to figure out who I can borrow cash from, or perhaps get someone in the US to wire me money. We've been using our charge card to conserve our cash, but taxis have cost us a lot, and, while many places take credit cards, plenty do not.
I ask directions to my branch within the mall. They have an info booth staffed with English speakers who apparently think we are not too swift, since we speak no Portuguese. Friends had warned me that Brazilians aren't good with directions. They are actually fine with directions, except they don't know "left" from "right." Without exception, Brazilians giving us directions would say "direito" while pointing to the left, and "esquerda" while pointing the the right. It has clearly gotten to the point where this mass delusion has become the norm. If you used the proper directions, people would think you stupid or pretentious.
My bank is as far as possible at the other end of the mall, which would be no big deal, except my foot is bleeding where my sandal has cut into it. I guess I just don't have what it takes to wear a Brazilian thong.
Along the walk, I encounter a giant Brazuca, intended for fans to take their picture with. A man is taking a picture of the Brazuca alone. I motion for him to get in the picture, and I will take a photo of/for him. Clearly he is insane. He motions for me to get in the picture with the Brazuca. It remains unclear to both of us what good a picture of me would do in his camera phone. Maybe he just didn't trust me to take a picture of him and figured I'd leave him alone if he took a picture of me. Such is Brazil. OTOH, we encountered the same thing in a restaurant on Saturday...Zach motioning to offer to take a picture of some people celebrating Brazil's latest win, and them motioning for him to be in their picture. It isn't just a language barrier, it is a cultural difference among thousands of cultural differences that make daily life exciting, challenging, confusing, and exhausting.
I limp through the mall and into the bank branch. Immediately, I notice three things:
- The sign reading "This bank closes at noon on days when the Brazilian national men's football team is playing."
- Three armed guards, including one sitting in a life-guard chair.
- The plastic, bulletproof divider and revolving door. Apparently, they are trying to keep Magneto either in or out. Fools! The guards' guns are still metallic!
I haven't bathed in a while and I'm wearing the same shorts for the third day in a row. At least my underwear hasn't passed its expiration date.
A bank employee at a nearby desk convinces me to take a seat. She speaks no English but will call someone who does. After a few minutes in the waiting area, I am beckoned to the desk with a gesture that looks Italian for, "you don't have a linguica's chance in hell." She is dialing for me and finally gets an English speaker on the line.
I am handed the receiver but receive little. The phone-only customer service rep confirms that my US bank card is useless. I can neither withdraw cash at an ATM or in person at the teller. The rep suggests I find the "Banco do 24 Horas" ATM or try to contact international customer service. I tried the ATMs from "Banco do 24 Horas" twenty-four horas ago without luck, which is why I am here. As for international customer service, I'd be happy to call them if you can tell me the number. No, she can't, but she'll tell the in-branch rep, in Portuguese, to google for it. I make a mental note to use Google Translate to translate the word "google."
I sit patiently while the local rep attempts to find a phone number for me. I have no working smartphone to distract me. The only brochures are in Portuguese and way beyond my vocabulary level, which is below that of a Brazilian cão ou gato. So I have nothing to do but watch the woman at the desk try to search for a phone number....for 30 minutos. She is dressed very professionally, but doesn't speak a word of English. So she is very unlike the numerous other young Brazilians we've met who have spent a year of high school learning English in the US. She is pretty but very "made up" with heavy make-up and dyed hair. She wears a heavy gold watch, way too gaudy to avoid attention on the street or public transit. I begin to understand why upscale and wanna-be-upscale Brazilians drive everywhere.
I sense that I am in a bad Brazilian soap opera (the TV is laughable here) and that at any moment, I'll be revealed as her long lost uncle and she my niece. Only she had a sex-change operation and is really my nephew Pablo. Or the guard will come out of a coma, or something. Something has to happen. I've been sitting here forever... Her bony wrists and manicured nails dance and pause over the keyboard. She searches fruitlessly on both internal and external sites. The result is clearly bupkis.
Having twiddled my thumbs as much as one can possible twiddle in mixed company, I nod. She smiles apologetically, and I exit through the Magneto-proof revolving door.
I return to the helpful English-speaking mall info desk, and ask where to find a "Banco do 24 Horas" ATM. It is worth another shot before hitting up local friends for cash. The attendant directs me to the supermercado, where I find the ATM in the corner. After a few touch-screen touches, it is calculating my final cost and asking for my approval. Thirty seconds later I have a crisp stack of R$50 bills in my humid little hands. Enough to last us the rest of the trip!
Triumphant, I buy some paper towels and toilet paper to replace what we've used at the apartment we've rented. I can only imagine what Brazilians think of us and our paper product peculiarities.
My family has been at the beach while I've been foraging for cash.
I drop off the paper goods at the apartment and continue onto the beach.
I don't have the energy to write about the beach in depth today but will another time...I'll share only this tidbit for now.
My wife and I are walking along the beach and see an empty coconut bobbing in the surf. This is one of the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of shells discarded from people drinking coconut water on the beach (yes, they just cut open the coconut and stick a straw in to drink the coconut water). My wife, never the environmentalist, looks unusually concerned. Against my better judgment, I ask, "What?"
"The coconut is in the water," she says.
"Yes, I know. What about it?"
"It will attract sharks," she warns.
"Sharks don't eat coconuts!" I exclaim (admittedly, I'll have to google for "do sharks eat coconuts," but will probably have no more luck than the banker this morning...maybe that is what she was googling for the entire time?!)
"Yes they do. They're scavengers."
"Then they won't be as hungry for the children. We're good either way."
My wife looks back along the beach. Are the children still in sight?
We walk a bit further north along the beach, then turn around, eventually reaching the uneaten children.
We leave the beach, but not before a run-in with Mario, which I'll save for another day. Suffice to say we're not going back to that part of the beach while in Brazil.
We gather our belonging and head back north, past the coconut-infested waters, to a pleasant restaurant. It is 3:00 pm and empty, but the service is attentive and the food outstanding. We order two caipirinha, one regular and one with dark rum. This seems to baffle and tax the waiter, but they arrive toot sweet (tout de suite if you prefer, but we're not in Paris).
These are not the unleaded versions we had at the American pre-party last Wednesday night. These kick like a mule and bite like a crocodile.
We take more leftovers and head home. It is already nearly 5:00 and the Germany-Algeria game will be starting soon.
A friend we met last night has invited Zach to play soccer with him and his friends, roughly 18 years old. Zach is almost sixteen, but big and a good player for an American. We wonder if all these Brazilians will be amazing. Zach is supposed to play in another pickup game at 8:00, but this first game is supposed to start at 6:00, so he should have time to do both.
Then Brazil happens.
Our friend, Raphael, asks if he can pick us up at 5:15. Great, we'll play early. But Rapha is on Brazil time and arrives around 5:45. He has to stop to pick up Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Joao. There is no room in the SUV, as I decide to tag along, so Joao rides in the trunk. We go back to his apartment, in a high-rise along the beach, about a mile south of our own. We watch some of the Germany-Algeria game. His maid makes us some sandwiches.
Around 6:30, we head out to another apartment belonging to another friend. The building has tennis courts and two full basketball courts that double as soccer fields. The surface is smooth asphalt, and everyone is playing in bare feet. (This is an upscale court, so don't think of disadvantaged urban youth playing in bare feet for lack of shoes.) Everyone's iPhones wait impatiently at the edge of the court. And wait. There are another five people on the adjacent court, but the people we came with warm up for another 30 minutes or so. Two more friends show up and are streaming the Germany-Algeria game, and watching from the nearby swingset. Rapha has to drop someone off at the airport. He'll be back in 10 minutes (Portuguese for "1 hour").
It is about 7:30 and people start showing up. It is Americans vs. Brazilians in the first game. Zach is paired with 3 or 4 American friends visiting Rapha. Zach dances around the court and the opponents. He is easily the best player on the court and he knows it. He has fun beating the Brazilians at their own game. It really comes down to practice, and clearly none of them play the game seriously. But they have Hobbit feet and he does not, so his foot is soon bleeding from the pavement. It is 8:00, time for the other match. We decide to go. Rapha offers us a ride, but another ten friends have now arrived en masse, and it is a good time to make our exit. It is only a mile walk up the beach.
We arrive home, bandage Zach's foot, and set off to find the other pickup game to which Zach has been invited by another friend of mine, also named Raphael. (Turns out about 1/4 of all Brazilians are named Raphael.) It is supposed to be at the gym just up the street from my apartment....or not. We go there and have no luck finding the game. We go back and check the address, and find the apartment building a block from where we are staying. From outside, we can hear the shouting of a soccer game but the guard doesn't speak English. We finally convince him to let us through and he leads us to the basement/garage. There, among the cars in the garage is a full-size basketball court with undersized soccer nets at each end. It is as grimy and dingy as the first court was upscale and well-lit. But the players are of a different caliber...
As my friend Raphael said, there will be Brazilians and some Japaneses playing. Most are between 20 and 30 years old and can really play. The court is slippery with gravelly dirt. Zach is easily the youngest but not the smallest. The rules are that each game ends in ten minutes or after two goals are scored. There are three of four teams of five players each, so everyone can rotate in.
Zach subs in and soon thereafter makes a nice give-and-go for an easy goal. The other players reassess ("the American kid can play," they think). He makes another nice move for an easy assist, and again people mumble aloud. A teammate lofts a ball into the corner, Zach runs under it and heads it home for another nice goal. A collective cheer goes up for the jogo bonito.
Opposing teams come and go for the next thirty minutes; Zach's team stays on the court and wins six or seven straight games. We stay another hour or so. When he offers to play goal, people insist he play the field. The Japaneses can really handle the ball, but Zach outweighs them by 40 pounds and easily pushes them off the ball. Alliances shift and one of the better players--"the Argentinian"--who has been a teammate most of the night is now an opponent. Zach man-marks him and takes pride in shutting him down.
He is a pig in shit. I am chatting with other people when I hear another cheer go up for a nice play. I look towards the court to see Zach trotting away from the net as if he just scored a goal.
We head home around 10 pm, Zach beaming as he tells the story of how he did a Maradona on the Argentinian and then buried the ball in the back of the net.
Just another day in Brazil.
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