Supercamp - São Paulo

Helicopter mom spies on the first few minutes of Supercamp

My kids are in Superférias this week. Roughly translated, it means "Supercamp". It is held at our little club and I'm guessing there are around 70 kids there--ranging in age from 3 to 12. It is one of the few camps that accepts kids at such a young age for a full day. 

Kids arrive at 9:30 and leave at 5 pm. Suffice it to say that most normal kids are exhausted at the end of the day. Suffice it to say that the 7 year old supertwins are barely winded and go on to destroy my house at will after coming home. 

During the camp, the kids do all kinds of stuff--zooming down zip lines and getting chased by a goat at Bichomania (some petting zoo/animal farm outside of São Paulo), pool time and scavenger hunts around the club, and whatever else they do. In fact, I do not want to know the details as I would probably have a helicopter-mom heart attack. So, you would think I would have had to sign maaaaannnny documents to allow them to do all this. You would be wrong.

Last US summer, one of my sons went to a nature camp at the Morton Arboretum outside of Chicago. I had to fill out 2 pages of information about my kid. Emergency contacts, allergies, doctors, all the addresses he had ever lived, who was allowed to pick him up and drop him off, my financial information and the color of my underwear. Only one of these is not true. Then there was a third page which was a medical form with all kinds of detailed questions about surgeries, what to do in case of emergency, etc. I got a hand cramp off of all of this. Also I had to sign off on getting charged $20 per 10 minutes late to pick them up (I have twice been late at our club more than 15 minutes and got charged a grand total of zero).

The sign-up sheet for the club went like this:
Name
Parents' names
Member number
Phone number. 
One week or two (check box)
Signature

It's all you need. Love Brazil.

Struck by lightning - São Paulo

Several seconds before death...and the lightning strike. Photo credit: Folha de São Paulo

Two nights ago we had dinner with friends at their apartment in Jardins. It is a beautiful place with a great view over Ibirapuera Park. At around 9 pm, one of those fantastically scary lightning storms hit and we watched the sky light up, crack open, and sizzle for more than an hour. My kids and their kids were alternately hiding under sofas and watching open-mouthed as the lightning hit seemingly everywhere. A woman on the São Paulo coast was killed on Sunday from a lightning strikes. It's not child's play here.

I am no fan of lightning storms. During my youngest years, we lived in a neighborhood in New York state that was at the top of a hill seemingly in the path of every single thunderstorm. In theory, we were. Storm King Mountain on the Hudson River Valley would direct them all our way, or so it seemed. Just about every house in the neighborhood was struck at least once. I still hate thunder so much that I am awake every time I hear even a distant rumble. 

Turns out I moved to the wrong place to escape lightning. Brazil is a bolt magnet. Every hour more than 5,700 lightning bolts strike in Brazil. More than 50 million bolts in a year and more 1,600 deaths from lightning strikes from 2000-2012 (source here).  Parsing the data further, you see that 82% of the deaths were men, with the majority between 20 and 39 years old. And summer is the big "winner" with 45% of the lightning strikes. 

This article claims that during summertime there is a humidity "band" that comes from the Amazon and sits over the São Paulo beaches. Reminds me of how in Chicago we blame Canada for the cold fronts. Those Amazonians, such kidders. You guys are going to burn down our forests and steal our water? Fine, have some lightning. São Paulo registered 267 deaths out of the 1,600--more than double the next state (Minas Gerais, 125). Apparently lightning likes our humidity. 

Which country wins the lightning bolt war? Not us. A small village in the Democratic Republic of Congo is number 1. Venezuela number 2. We are number 3. I'd say let's get ourselves a bronze metal but we all know what that would attract.

Xingu and the CIA - São Paulo

Very talented tree frog. Photo credit: http://www.temakinho.com/?p=420

At the risk of you thinking I spend all of my time eating and drinking, the BH suggested this topic as my next one and I can't resist. I actually can resist the beer itself--I am no fan of dark beers and Xingu (pictured above) is one. I almost named a black labrador Xingu, by the way (I already had a blond labrador named Chopp which is Portuguese for draft beer).  It is a fun word to say: you pronounce it "Shin-GOO."

Xingu has a happy story, and a less happy one. Xingu as a name comes from the Xingu River near the Amazon. The word is translated from Kamayurá as "good clean water." According to wikipedia, the Xingu people are made up of 15 indigenous groups and all four of Brazil's indigenous languages. There are more than 25,000 people living near this river, a tributary of the Amazon.

At least, they are living there for now. A great many are threatened by the building of hydroelectric dams including Belo Monte. A 100 kilometer stretch will be impacted by the building of Belo Monte (source: Amazon Watch). It reminds me of the terrible history of the US and how we displaced our  indigenous peoples. For more on this, take a look at this video:

Link is here in case blocked on your computer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5tPxfmBj44.

So, that is the unhappy story. The scary story. I have to update myself on what is going on with Belo Monte--I confess to have lost track of the construction of this colossus.
In terms of the Xingu name on the beer, the story does involve the CIA but not the one you think. The beer brand was created by Cesario Mello Franco in 1987, in conjunction with Alan Eames, a writer who focused on the history of beers. Mr. Eames had discovered a black beer that was registered in the year 1557 and produced in the Amazon. The beer was made from corn and manioc, and naturally fermented. Based on this past, Mr. Franco and Mr. Eames found a small microbrewery to brew the new Xingu. 

After many tests, Xingu was brought to the CIA.  Not that one.  The Culinary Institute of America. It was a great success, and the beer was first launched in stores and restaurants in the USA. Then the Brazilian beer made its way home, and the Brazilian rights sold to Femsa and then incorporated into Heineken.  Many prizes followed and the beer is marketed in the USA, England, Australia, Italy and other countries, in addition to Brazil. My source for all of this is here.

So the happy story and the unhappy story of Xingu do not meet. There is no link between the brewery and the indigenous folks who struggle to stop their homeland from being flooded. No reason to stop drinking one in order to help the other. I do find it ironic, however, that the advertising above shows the animals of the Amazon, which will also be adversely affected by the dam.

Which one leaves more? - São Paulo

The menu board at Dona Onça

One of my favorite weekend lunch places in all of São Paulo is the Bar da Dona Onça. It is the ground floor of the Oscar Niemeyer designed Copan Building (watch out for falling concrete) and you'd better get there before 1 pm if you want a table. It's small, fairly loud (not for first dates, methinks) and decorated with all kinds of onça (jaguar) footprints and photos--the huge black and white photos on the walls each have a small jaguar hidden a la Where's Waldo? on them.

My favorite item is of course the caipirinha. Unable to decide between six named choices, I asked the waitress "qual que mais sai?" which means literally "which one leaves more?" Or which one is the most ordered. In this case it is the Dona Onça which was tangerine and passionfruit juice with cachaça. Yummy.

In my defense, I did not drink them both. Mom had the lime one.

BH ordered a risotto, my dad a pasta ragu, and my mom and I and the twins divided a bunch of appetizers. One exciting moment came when the waiter brought finger bowls for the kids and they were almost sucked down too. Everyone went home happy. 

Rrrrrrow! 

You can find Dona Onça here.

The beer fridge

Say, did this building curve before I drank the caipirinha? Ah, yes. It did.

Catching the wind - São Paulo

Arrival at the Catavento...

I have blogged once before about the Catavento Museum (catavento means pinwheel) in São Paulo. It is a beautiful building with interesting exhibits, and the really good news is that it keeps getting better. Unlike Butantan which seems to get more decrepit each time I visit, the Catavento has added new exhibits and surprised and delighted me each time.

At the entrance to the museum, there is now a sign that says that Catavento is the most visited museum in Brazil with more than 4,000 visitors a day. That is not bad for Brazil, especially when you consider that it is hardly easy to get there to the Palacio das Industrias--this was the first time ever we have gotten there in one shot rather than having to loop around again (and for this I'd like to thank waze). We do not need to compare ourselves with the Louvre with its 23,000 visitors per day. After all, they've got the Mona Lisa. We have the tatu-gigante (giant armadillo). Which would you rather?

Me too. After a first exhibit with colored sand that kids can build into all kinds of mountains and cause rain to fall with their hands (hard to explain), we found the tatu-gigante. I for one am glad I don't have to worry about running into one of these on my street any time soon (they became extinct 10,000 years ago). Knowing my boys, they are disappointed by the same thought.

After this mandatory photo stop, we went through the natural history area with videos of the Pantanal, bird calls, a sabertooth tiger and a new live exhibit of stick insects. A new exhibit on venomous animals of Brazil so completely kicks Butantan's butt I might have to send the info on to the snake and scorpion folks and tell them to get it into gear.

Read it and weep, Butantan.

BH's favorite part of the museum is the physics area with hands-on explanations of various science-y things. Clearly I am a liberal arts graduate. Gravity, electricity, light waves, running horses, bendy waves and weight lifting were all discussed. I think. I was busy watching kids encase themselves in large soap bubbles. 

Science-y stuff

Another recent addition to the museum is a tiny shop that sells educational toys. Science toys. Real science--tornado formation, how things roll up hill, etc. All at reasonable prices like US$5-10. No crap like at US museums like plastic dinosaurs and sparkly wands. Love it.

Upstairs my 7 year olds just ran out of gas, but we walked through one exhibit that was excruciatingly educative. They had photos of people before they became drug addicted, and then photos of them (mug shots really) after they had become addicted to meth or cocaine or whatever. If you ever need to scare the poop out of your kids, that's a good place. Better than scorpions really.

Highly recommend.

Morumbi - São Paulo

The view from Einstein 10th floor

The best hospital in São Paulo is, arguably, the Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein or just Einstein. It is a private hospital that sits next to the governor's palace, and is filled with smart doctors even if many of them are teenagers. No, that's just my thoughts when my kid has to have his forehead sewn up and the emergency room doctor looks remarkably like Doogie Howser.

Yesterday I was there to visit a friend who has had recurrent breathing and heart issues due to an auto-immune disease. She was up on the 11th floor in the cardiac unit, and as the panoramic elevator went up, I marveled at this view of the Morumbi neighborhood. In the foreground is one of the buildings of Einstein, and immediately behind is a number of expensive mansions with swimming pools. To the right is an enormous condominium complex that went up next to the Morumbi soccer stadium in the past few years.

After all the green, you can see the favela of Real Parque. It is large, low and brick-colored. It is not a nice place. Glued to it are more high-rise expensive apartment buildings. More than any other neighborhood, Morumbi has a mix of great poverty and great wealth, including the city's most luxurious shopping center called Cidade Jardim.

We lived in Morumbi when we first moved to Brazil in 1998. We lived in front of a nice park called Vinicius de Moraes, next to the goalie for the São Paulo Football Club. He was a good neighbor but we didn't hang out since BH is a Palmeirense. 

The bad part of the tree-lined and pretty Morumbi is that it turns you into a bridge and tunnel person. To get downtown or just about anywhere, you are forced to cross a bridge or dive into a tunnel--which gets harder with the growing traffic problem that it is São Paulo. If you can stay in the neighborhood though, it is probably pretty nice.

Me, I'll stick to the hospital. And hopefully, not very often.

Brazil and books. Again. - São Paulo

Okay, I am caffeinated up this morning which means it is time for mini-rant. And it shall be about my second favorite topic, after security, well, okay third after food too, and wait, I like bugs. Ugh, no more coffee.

Books. I love books. As you may know if you get through a few of my posts, I read my first popular Brazilian novel over Christmas break. I enjoyed it immensely. So, while waiting for a young lady to show up to interview for my US college, I went to Saraiva bookstore to see if I could find any of Daniel Galera's prior novels. Mind you, I went to a regular Saraiva (Eldorado Shopping) not a Mega-Saraiva so this is not one of the biggest bookstores.

I walked around the store two times and could not find fiction. I browsed a couple of the tables at the front--all translated foreign literature. Aren't we done with 50 Shades yet? No? Anyway, finally I noted the 8 stands that were titled "Literatura Estrangeira". Foreign literature. These are all books translated into Portuguese from English (mostly) or other foreign language. Lots and lots. Nora Roberts, Tom Clancy, all are translated.

Finally I peered around the corner and spied the three racks of "Literatura Nacional." Three. I had to stealth a photo because the sales person was beginning to suspect me of something at this point. As I looked through the books, I noted that none of the Jabuti finalists were in the racks. Not one of the São Paulo award winners. Not one Daniel Galera. Jorge Amado was there. And several other classic novelists, by the way, but not so many contemporaries. 

I need to understand Brazil's publishing industry. Is it simply not worth spending money on upcoming new authors here? Do Brazilians, in their five books a year average, only read international authors? Are all the local bookstores like this? I haven't been to Cultura in a long time but it's on my list of projects now.

Past blogs posts on reading:

Daniel Galera's Barba Ensopada

Reading

Libraries