Tension and Release

The past few days have been a little tense here. Ana mentioned one night that the police had gone on strike. I thought she was referring to the tiny group of private police that patrol her neighborhood, which didn't seem all that big of a deal. However when I started noticing it was all the news here was reporting on, I knew it was something bigger. Had the police force of the entire city (of 4 million) gone on strike, I asked? Well, no. The police force of the entire state had gone on strike. It became quite ominous here. The streets were empty everywhere. Friends that were going to come visit us all cancelled their plans until this was resolved. Even the public buses stopped running, as it was no longer safe to be on the unprotected streets. Most stores in the city shut their gates to the public as robberies were becoming commonplace. The Brazilian government even sent military forces here, which in America would be called a State of Emergency.

I have to be honest, I sometimes get cabin fever here. Whether my perception is illusory or not, I don't always feel the same freedom to just wander around aimlessly as I'm used to, especially now with Ben. This police strike just added to my cabin fever, which kind of culminated this morning when I just became a heaping Ubergrouch of a Bundt. My grouchiness was only compounded because I was knowingly breaking my own ideal of being able to be happy anywhere; that peace should come from within. The strike finally ended this morning fortunately, but I remained a grouch nonetheless for some reason.

We then came over to stay at Ana's sister's place, where we would meet Vladimir and Karinny, a married couple that Ana is very close with and has known for a long time. Ana has told me for years that she can't wait for us to meet, as she knew I'd love them. They live in Canada now but happened to be visiting the same time we are. They are that couple that you feel comfortable with immediately. We spoke in Portuguese for a while about travel, but when Ana mentioned I had recently applied for a Masters program in Science and Religion, everything changed to English (theirs is far better than my Portuguese) and Vladimir and I unkowingly forsook the women altogether. Vladimir is a fellow programmer who is also in love with theology and philosophy like I. We would have talked until tomorrow if there were no time constraints. The cool thing about meeting someone with these interests is that there becomes immediate brotherhood in milennia of shared thought. I would say even more so, theology and philosophy really being embedded in humans since consciousness began, these interests connect us at the deepest level. I was bummed when they left, but horribly thankful to have met them both.

And just like that, my cabin fever was gone. I was subsequently reminded of my cousin Brandon, whose life has been positively transformed more than I can explain, and honestly I think more than I've ever even heard of. As he explains, it is all only a result of his grasping onto spirituality for dear life. He notes that today his joy is in making new relationships and sharing in that shining light with others. Today proved his philosophy to me.

Bube's Ocean

The two things I was most excited about with bringing little Bube to Brazil was 1) for he and his family to get to know each other, and 2) to see the expression on his face the first time he sees the ocean. Today we did the latter.

We're staying at Ana's sister's house right now, which is just several blocks from the beach. As we walked there today, we caught our first sight of the blue, Brazilian waters. I explained to Ana that during summers in high school, my friends and I would drive almost 2 hours just to see the brown, cruddy waters of Galveston. Despite the brown water, every time we exited the freeway and drove up to the seawall to catch our first glimpse of the ocean, my heart would beat fast and I'd become giddy as a kid. I don't know if it's the gurantee of absolute wide-openness as far as you can see, knowing that (idealistically) man can't really destroy it by putting buildings ontop of it and so it remains pristine in mind, but there's something deep and primal about the ocean. I've been this way for as long as I can remember, and I really can't think of anything else in nature that stirs me up like this.

When I went off to college in Lubbock, I deeply missed the ocean and had ocean-withdrawals my freshman year. I explained to Ana that my freshman year I had a literature class where I had to write several papers. In one paper, I wrote on the experience of being inside the tube of a wave: how another world forms around you, listens for noises you make and echoes them all the way across the tube, then warps & distorts them back to you - almost like a little microcosm with different laws of nature. In any case, as I told Ana, that paper alone secured me an A in the class. Granted my prof was a little hippie, but I'm pretty sure it was the emotion in my paper that secured me that A. Ana said she never knew any of this about me!

Exhibit A

Now, I hate to come across as one of those parents that likes some particular thing, hopes and expects their kid to like it the same, and then brags to everyone how their kid so likes the same thing, regardless of the objective truth. But Bube was mesmerized by the ocean today, and I present my evidence:

Gravity
All I really wanted to do was show Bube the ocean and see what he thought about it. Would the waves scare him? Would the blue and the whoosh of the foam calm him? Would it all overwhelm him too much? Or would he just prefer to look at the porta-potties? We arrived, and stood there for a while as the constant Fortaleza breeze blew up his little toupe, and he intently surveyed the expanse very calm, and very pensive. In fact, I think we stood there for 10 minutes or so without him squirming or making any noise (pretty rare for a 4-month old). Finally Ana suggested I put his feet on the sand.

I should note here, one night a week or so ago, I put his feet on the ground and he magically began walking. I only have to support his body weight a little and he bends his knee up, puts a foot forward, then the other, etc. But when I put his feet down on the sand here, his little legs churned like I've yet to see and he just bolted toward the water, as if gravity were yanking him. I wondered if he'd freak out when the water actually touched his legs. A wave broke and sent the water past his feet - he stopped. He looked around and watched below closely as the water receded. After it finished, he looked at me and screamed in absolute joy, then hauled @ss toward the ocean. I let us run until the water was up to his diaper but obviously wouldn't let him go any further (because he didn't have his surf board).

This was the most fun I've had at the beach in a long time, and that's coming from someone that lived in a tent on the beach for some time. I can hardly wait for us to go back.

		Bube, expressing what I feel when I see the ocean
	If only Bube had a surfboard

Anecdotes

Brazilian Anecdotes

If I've never mentioned before, it's insane how much people eat here (and everyone is thin). The night we flew to Fortaleza from Rio, we landed a little before midnight. We arrived to the house and the next thing I knew Ana was eating some eggs & rice that her mom began cooking as soon as we got home, sometime close to 1:00AM. They clearly expected that I would be hungry as well, and everyone was shocked when I said I wasn't that hungry. "But it's the middle of the night! How can you be hungry now?" Then I thought about the food, and my stomach overruled my reason, and I gorged myself.

A couple mornings later I woke up with like 20 bites (from what?) on my hand. Time will tell whether it was from a band of outlaw mosquitos, or if I am now undead.

Bube

He is progressing at an incredible rate ever since we got here. New tricks he will now perform include:

• Turning over from back to front
• Turning over from front to back
• Staring at his own hands
• Grabbing everything
• Grabbing the pacifier, putting it in his mouth, and sucking
• And our new favorite: laying in the hammock, looking at his hands, talking to himself for a while, and ultimately falling asleep on his own.

Fortaleza

Tchau

We said our farewells to Paulo, Keila, Rafael and Hugo, headed to the Rio airport, and massacred all airport lines with our Ana-has-a-small-child-so-move-out-of-the-way-we-have-priority weapon. It reminded me of being in Scandanavia; I swear it took us only 7 minutes from the time we walked into the airport to the time we got to our gate.

This 3 hour flight was 3x harder than our 10 hour flight from the states. It was after 10:00PM and Bube was having nothing to do with going to sleep, yet he was so tired that he didn't want to be awake either. But Bube found what he considered to be a happy medium - stay awake and scream bloody murder. And so he did, for about an hour straight.

Everyone around us was so nice about it all though. I kept apologizing to everyone and they kept looking at me with strange faces, as if "what in the world are you apologizing for?" On the flight from the States, Ana and Ben were given a seat with a bassinet and gringo was given a seat elsewhere, so we were separated. Before we took off I went up to check on Ana, and the Brazilian lady sitting next to Ana was already holding Ben while Ana got herself all situated. She may as well have been Ana's aunt.

Arrival

We got to Fortaleza a little before midnight, absolutely exhausted, but seeing Ana's parents and her brother waiting for us with gigantic smiles was refreshing. They took to Ben like white on rice. He was sleeping when we got there, but they all hovered around him while we walked, barely paying attention to where they were going. It reminds me of when we Met our family in Israel for the first time, and the feeling that we had all been connected our entire lives. I felt that between them and Ben from the moment they met him.

Since then, Bube's been getting showered with love, and baths (about 3 times a day). It's hot here so he stays naked all the time and takes lots of baths - two things he loves. He's also become best friends with the hammock; he goes to sleep sooooo much easier in these than with anything else. In fact, he's learning how to go to sleep by himself with these. He's definitely getting one of these in his room - whenever we actually find a place to live to get a house to give him a room to put a hammock in..

Rio

On our 10-hour flight to Rio, Bubelah really did great. We took an overnight flight, so Bube was in sleep mode the entire time, which made things really easy. It was interesting: I've never been able to sleep on planes, even overnight flights. This time however, as long as I was holding Ben, I actually slept. When I wasn't holding him, I couldn't sleep.

Paulo & Keila's street

That being said, we were still exhausted upon arriving to Rio. And once we arrived, we noticed quite a difference in the way moms with infants are treated. I was surprised to see the airport staff in general making way for us (Ana & Ben even got to go straight to the front of the 1-hour immigration line), but even travellers in general seemed to give priority to Ana & Ben. Bundt is a gringo, so he got the shaft.

Paulo and Keila

Paulo & Keila's backyard,
 overlooking rainforest

I've met Paulo and Keila several times and could hang around them forever. Brazilians are warm in general, but this family has a light that shines even brighter.

Paulo met us at the airport and drove us straight back to their house. On the way, I heard Ben in the back with Ana laughing and talking a lot. I looked back and noticed he was looking out the window while laughing and talking. I looked over to see what he was looking at, and there was a bus with a bus driver waving, talking, and laughing with Ben. I looked back at Ben and he was laughing and looking at something else on the bus. I looked back at the bus and noticed everyone waving, talking, and laughing with Ben.

Paulo & Keila's backyard

That night we did nothing but chat, watch the family go absolutely nuts over Ben, take care of him for us all the time, and let us sleep. Ben had other plans though. It took us hours of screaming to get him to go to sleep.. If we stopped trying and let him play around, he was happy. He's just way too interested in everything going down right now.

Travel

I read on another family's travel blog that travelling abroad with kids is even better than travelling abroad without. I have to admit, so far, I think I agree. All the people I've already met here and all the things I've already seen here are all simply vivified, just because I'm seeing them through Ben's eyes now.

Bube and I share similar
StomachFatRolls

Paulo, Keila, and Rafael drove us around Rio for hours just seeing the city: the famous Christ the Redeemer statue, Pao de Azucar, Corcovado, Ipanema, Leblon, the Maracana stadium, and much more. We went home to get another nap before flying again that night to Fortaleza, and Ben and I got to take our first little hammock-nap in Brazil. Their backyard (where the hammock is) overlooks a Rainforest that's a national park. Ben was absolutely mesmerized by all the different colors, sounds, the variety of birds chirping, etc. He simply lay there with me in the hammock, sucking his pacifier, looking around with eyes wide open. I did not want to leave that hammock.

Firsts

Sunday, December 4, 2011 - Our first post in some time, but it's relevant, as little Bubelah is experiencing all kinds of firsts himself. Our yearly visit to Brazil approached really fast this year, as in the weeks prior we were all over the place visiting family in dallas, friends in houston, thanksgiving, etc.

I started to become more and more anxious for our first real travel with bube on December 1.. This would be the first time he'd fly on a plane (and 13 hours worth of flight time no less), the first time he'd see a new country, the first time he'd meet any of Ana's family, etc. Since we always have a layover in Rio for like 10 hours, we decided instead to stay a night in Rio with Ana's cousin and his family - Paulo & Keila, and their kids Rafael and Hugo - then head to Fortaleza the next night.

This would be a lot of travel, a lot of disruption to little bube's daily schedule, and tons of stimulation. I was excited for all of this for him but nervous at the same time. Would he scream the entire flight? Would he hate moving all of the time and having no schedule? Would he freak out about all kinds of new people interacting with him all the time?

Brazil II

Saturday, January 29, 2011 - I spent my days in Brazil eating every 1.5 hours, sweating, losing weight (6 lbs?!), and practicing my Portuguese with Ana's mom over coffee every day - even philosophising lightly. One lingering thought about bonding with Ana's family then faded, while another long-lingering one edged its way back into my thoughts. Even though my life has buoyed itself right-side up over the past few years, I've married the most incredible person I've ever met, and have been given the life of international .007 agents, something "big" is somehow necessarily still yet to come, somehow within my power to effect, but somehow unknown to me. Over the past couple years I've toyed with the idea of returning to school to study Theology, and also, Ana and I talk sparsely about having kids. That being said, I have no idea what I'd do with a degree in Theology, and conversely, neither Ana nor I are ready for kids yet, but at the same time, we can't imagine growing old without a family.

One of the first nights in Brazil while plagued by this nagging thought of something big yet to come, I fervently prayed for this big something that keeps nagging me to reveal itself once and for all. The next morning we discovered Ana was pregnant.