Breaking the Routine

They are all around: dingy little bars with pastel tiles on the walls and glass-fronted counters which display a standard variety of fried snacks. Some are only big enough for the bar, and their squat tables and their customers spill out onto the sidewalk. Some are larger, and might actually qualify as restaurants, with long low tables around which harried waiters rush, clanking down plates, silverware and glasses of beer. In Rio they’re called botequins, and they’re probably the closest thing this city has to an indigenous food culture. Everything else seems to be imported from the Northeast (feijoada, acarajé, farofa) or the Amazon (açaí and any number of fruits). But the botequim is uniquely carioca.

When you’ve been in one place for a while, there’s the danger of hitting an unfulfilling equilibrium with it. It’s just there: no longer new and exciting, not bad per se, it is what it is. The last couple of weeks, Rio has felt like that to me. I’ve been here for about five months now, and I’ve spent most of that time in the city. I know my way around Copacabana. I spend my weekdays at PUC and my weekends in Lapa, on the beach, or wandering around the Center. I have a routine, which is all well and good, but every now and then it’s good to break with routine. So I eat at botequins.

Yesterday, I wanted chicken for lunch. Not dry, fluffy white chicken breasts. Not freezer-packed fillets. No, I wanted greasy, crispy, fatty delicious chicken. And I found just the place. A couple blocks down my street is a restaurant which always has several large birds roasting in an oven in the kitchen window. I scoped it out. Looked good. Smelled good. I walked in and sat down at the long counter.

A waiter brought me a plate, a fork and knife and a menu. I ordered a Brahma and a quarter chicken with rice, salad, and farofa. My food came out just a minute later, still hot from the oven, and every bit as crispy and juicy as I’d hoped it would be. I wrestled with a wing first, then dove into carving up the breast. I happily mixed all the ingredients together – chicken, lettuce, tomato and rice – and washed it down with the cold beer. Delicious. Liberating. Greasy.

I watched Faustão - the obnoxious host of the popular show Domingão - gesticulating on a TV in the corner. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but that was fine by me. I sat and ate, every now and then perusing a couple of the photos of Rio taped to the walls. Somewhere along the way, I lost track of time. By the time I was done eating, I’d lost almost an hour. I paid the check and left.

Walking back home, I was content. Botequim food is far from gourmet, but that doesn’t keep it from being really good. There’s actually a popular guidebook to botequins in Rio, and when I get bored on weekend afternoons, I like to open up my copy and find someplace new to eat lunch. That’s how I discovered the sanduíche de perníl, a sandwich made with French bread and stuffed with slices of marinated roast pork, sometimes topped with cheese and, in one famous variation, grilled pineapple. The Rio Botequim guide is also how I found Café Gaúcho, a landmark restaurant in the Center which makes a cafezinho to give the nuns a run for their money.

The truth is, I’m looking forward to seeing everyone from home in July. I’m excited about being in Providence for the summer, and senior year should be great. But there are plenty of things I’ll miss about Rio, and top on that list is going down the street to a grimy hole-in-the-wall bar and getting a plate heaped high with chicken or lingüiça or perníl and watching bad Brazilian TV and animated Brazilian conversation about soccer, politics, and whose turn it is to buy the next round.

In Brief

Again, I’m behind on my blogging, but I’m liable to get more behind over the next week, since Filly arrives tomorrow. So, here’s the deal: midterms are mostly over, with the exception of the take-home translations we have to do for Greek, which he’s giving to us a few at a time so we can get feedback throughout the process.

I’ve settled into a routine here, spending the week at PUC, including Fridays - which I would otherwise have off – so that I can get work done on my independent study. That’s coming along well: I’ve got about five pages of the introduction done, and a good reading list compiled. Now I just have to keep up with my self-assigned deadlines.

I’ve mostly spent my weekends hanging around Rio, though this past Saturday I went on a trip sponsored by the International Programs office to a nature preserve a couple hours inland from the city. I didn’t realize how long I’d been in the city until I got a glimpse of farmland and livestock – it was great! I really don’t think I could ever live full-time in a big city. I need some access to the great outdoors.

Like I said, Filly arrives tomorrow, which is also very exciting. We will spend tomorrow night in Rio then go to Paraty - a colonial town four hours down the coast - for Saturday and Sunday. Then we’ll come back to Rio for the week, and do all the various touristy things until she has to head back on Saturday evening.

I’m working on a very long blog post about religion, which should be up sometime soon. It’s not really in the same vein as the rest of the stuff here, but I’ve been thinking about it, so why not put it into writing?

Right then: that’s about it. You’re caught up. I’ll do my best to keep it that way.

Foreign Policy Magazine Does it Again

I love it. 

Sunday in Rio

I woke up late this morning. Rolling over in bed, I looked at the alarm clock which I had reset while half-asleep. It was past 11:00. I got up, made my bed, and pulled on the t-shirt that was lying on my couch. I opened the thick curtains and found it to be a brilliantly sunny day.

I went into the kitchen, opened the cabinet and pulled out a plate, a coffee cup, a saucer, a bread knife, a butter knife and a spoon. I went to the fridge and found the margarine and sugar. I laid out a plastic placemat and poured a cup of coffee. I had a piece of pão francês.

Last night I went with some other Brown students to a samba club in the Center. The bar was tucked away down a dingy road past a plaza which is sketchy even in broad daylight. It was a great place. The main room is three stories tall with stone walls composed of eratically-placed little rocks and shot through here and there with seemingly random planks of wood. The stairs had wrought-iron and rough wood bannisters. There were posters of jazz musicians hanging near the door.

In the middle of the room, up against the right wall, was a band playing raucous, vaguely monotonous samba standards. The crowd around the musicians was comprised mostly of Brazilians, all of whom seemed to know the words to every song. They bounced around yelling to friends who looked on from the balconies above. Toward the back of the dancers, up against the wall opposite the band, stood more people drinking beer from glasses far to fancy for Antartica Original.

We pushed our way through the crowd to the stairs at the back of the room. Climbing up two flights, we found ourselves on an open-air terrace at the back of the club. It was a tight space with a concrete floor and a small bar. Plants climbed up the corners of the brick walls and drooped over our heads. The music from inside was just a little bit muffled and the stars were bright.

We stayed at the club until the band finished playing. We danced a bit, but mostly we people-watched from the first balcony and talked. There were several people celebrating birthdays and we happily accepted an offer of cake from a woman at the table next to ours.

I got back early in the morning and went to bed. After getting breakfast, I read for a while from A Moveable Feast. Before long, I was hungry again, and I went downstairs to the bakery. I had a slice of pizza and a pastry filled with spicy sausage, cheese and chopped peppers and onions.

It is breezier today than it has been for a while, and I took a walk down to the beach, enjoying the cool air and the shade of the trees and tall buildings. I have things to do: this week I have midterms in two classes, each of which involves a two-part test. But for right now, I’m happy just to sit, to read, and to see what happens next. The work will get done, but it would be a shame to waste a day like today by being too productive.

Ben Gets a Haircut

I got my first haircut in a different country yesterday. It only cost me R$6.00, which is almost exactly US$3.00 now. (The dollar is at its lowest exchange rate since 2001, and is projected to dip below R$2.00 in coming weeks. Bad for U.S. travelers, slightly better for Brazilian ones.)

Before.

After.

Cafezinho or Cortadito?

Last week, Filly sent me a New York Times article about coffee in Rio. The author talked about the importance of the product to Brazil’s economy, past and present, about the traditional cafezinho (literally, “little coffee”) which Brazilians drink at various points throughout the day, and he talked about the growing popularity of espresso around the town. With a few exceptions, he seemed to be relatively unimpressed with the quality of coffee available in Rio.

In general, I agree with him. The espresso here is usually watery and bitter while your run-of-the-mill cafezinho is just plain watery and often it smacks of artificial sweetener. On the whole, Brazilian coffee is probably best experienced as just another part of the scenery. Looking out the window of my apartment, a gentle breeze rustling the leaves on the trees below, sipping a cup of (weak) coffee is very relaxing. You should try it some time. Just don’t think too hard about the beverage itself.

However, there is one magical factor which turns an ordinary cafezinho into an extraordinary cup of coffee. The New York Times article makes no mention of this secret ingredient. I do not blame them. It would be easy to overlook: there just aren’t that many cafés in Rio that throw it into the mix. I am at a distinct advantage in this regard, however, because I am attending a Catholic school and the secret ingredient is the careful attention of a nun.

Yes, the Carmelite Servants of the Poor make the best cafezinho in Rio. Every afternoon I make my way to the Bar das Freiras, located in PUC’s main academic building (the name, by the way, means the Nuns’ Bar). There, I pay a measly R$0.50 at the register, take the receipt I’m handed, and head over to the service counter. I turn in the receipt and ask for a cafezinho. The attendant takes a little Styrofoam cup and fills it from a large metal carafe with a wooden-handled spigot. She also hands me a tiny clear plastic spoon.

This being Brazil, sugar is obligatory – the Times reporter will back me up on this one. I pour one packet into my cup and stir it in. I walk methodically over to a plastic table and take a seat, being careful not to spill. The cup is not that big, and I try to take my time drinking. Nonetheless, I usually manage to squeeze in only about four or five sips. The drink is just so good. Rich, aromatic and naturally sweet, it is everything that the stereotypical cafezinho is not. In fact, it is much more reminiscent of another mainstay of the Latin American coffee tradition: the Cuban cortadito.

That’s probably why I like the nuns’ coffee so much. It reminds me of Cuba, of resting after lunch in the little town of Delícias, waiting for work to start up again at the Quaker meetinghouse we were painting, someone or other coming around with a tray full of plastic cups with the smallest portion of wonderful Cuban coffee, sweetened with simple syrup and served piping hot. This ritual repeats itself throughout the day in Cuba. When guests arrive, when work is done, for no reason at all, coffee is served. And coffee is as predictably good in Cuba as it is predictably mediocre in Brazil.

But so what if drinking a cafezinho at the Bar das Freiras has more to do with sipping a cortadito on the tiled patio of an old house in Cuba than it does with gulping down the Brazilian equivalent of Folgers’ Instant at my window in Copacabana? Either way, it’s getting to be that time of day, and be it Brazilian or Cuban, some of the best coffee in Rio is right upstairs, and I’ve got four unread sections of the paper in my backpack.

Shaking Things Up

Really, I promise this is the last post I’m going to write about ethanol. That’s the plan, anyway. But I think it’s fitting to wrap the issue up by looking at the big picture, by looking at the political landscape into which this whole energy thing has been thrown. Here’s what’s great about all this: when you really look at it, ethanol has crumpled the ideological map, and that’s great.

First off, to throw some labels around: ethanol is an “alternative energy source”, a “renewable energy source”, a “biofuel”. Those things all sound nice and environmentally-friendly, right? Sure. So why is Greenpeace against the U.S.-Brazilian ethanol agreement? Seems a little odd, I suppose. But they’re backed up by the old-guard Latin American leftists: Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez held a conversation on television a couple of weeks ago in which they worried aloud about what would happen to food supplies when the world’s sugar and corn was all being used to power cars. 

Now, on the other side of the coin, imagine I were to grab a bunch of good liberal friends from Brown and nonchalantly say, “Isn’t it great to know that Paul Wolfowitz is at the forefront of the push for renewable energy?” First off, they would probably laugh at my sarcastic partisan witticism, and then, realizing that I was in fact, not making a sarcastic partisan witticism, they would turn incredulous. But Wolfowitz – formerly of Bush DoD fame and now at the World Bank – is indeed in favor of the ethanol initiative, and he is hopeful for even more progress in the near future. Meanwhile, back in Congress, the Republicans are not helping his cause: the GOP is stonewalling on the free trade of the fuel. This somehow seems out of character, or at least it goes against all the free market rhetoric that gets bandied around in the House and Senate.

So, what gives?

Of course, I didn’t give you the full story. You probably knew that already. Greenpeace does have a point: they’re worried about the negative effects of monoculture on biodiversity, and what’s more, they’re a little bit baffled by a purported move toward securing sustainable fuel sources by an administration which is playing chicken with global warming. And of course, the real issue for Wolfowitz is free trade: he’s all for it, as are many of his conservative friends. The former Undersecretary of Defense has even explicitly called for the US$0.54 per gallon tariff on Brazilian alcohol imports to be reduced or eliminated. The problem is that the corn farmers who so strongly support the import duty as a subsidy of their own ethanol production operations are represented overwhelmingly by Republicans – hence the GOP’s divided stance. 

Maybe I’m not saying anything new. Politics is complicated. Interest groups form independently of party and ideology. Some theoretical psychobabble about Regime Theory comes to mind. But in the stale environment of American politics, where the two-party system had seemingly taken all the nuance out of the public debate, it’s nice to be reminded every now and then that things don’t have to be black-and-white. And do you know what else? For once, I agree with Paul Wolfowitz. How’s that for shaking things up?

A New Chapter in Bush’s Foreign Policy?

President Bush will be arriving in São Paulo tomorrow, March 8th to kick off a tour of Latin America. He will only be in Brazil for about 24 hours – perhaps less – but his visit has understandably set off a flurry of news reports in this country. Everything from development policies to the presidential security detail have been up for scrutiny in the Brazilian press, which can’t seem to make up its mind as to whether this meeting will yield any concrete results or not. I am of the opinion that, while the visit will not be a particular milestone in U.S.-Brazilian relations, it offers insight into the status of Bush’s foreign policy. The trip is noteworthy because, while the stage is set for Bush to potentially do some good for the world, ultimately this increased focus on Latin America is little more than an interesting ploy to stop the bleeding of Bush’s approval ratings caused by the catastrophe in Iraq.

First off, what is the potential benefit to the Hemisphere? The one major topic which is definitely on the presidents’ agenda is ethanol. The United States and Brazil are hammering out the details of an agreement to share technology for the production of the fuel, and even some Republicans in Congress (notably Sen. Dick Lugar of Indiana) have gotten on the renewable energy bandwagon, calling for bilateral investment in biofuel research as a way to decrease unemployment and increase growth in the Western Hemisphere. I expect good things from this agreement, however the sticking point is the high tariff which the U.S. levies on Brazil’s ethanol. Lula has promised to breach this subject when he meets with Bush, but Bush has said he will not discuss a reduction.

The other big issue which the United States will want to discuss is Hugo Chávez. Lula, for his part, has said that Chávez is off the table at this meeting. Of course, Bush is looking to contain the Venezuelan president by way of the energy deal with Lula. Chávez himself has suggested that the ethanol agreement is designed to undercut Venezuela’s share of the Americas’ energy market. I think that Chávez’ concerns are well-founded. Increased North-South cooperation on biofuels will bolster regional stability and, if deployed correctly (and that’s a big if), could in fact do a lot of good for Latin America, both economically and politically (i.e. by weakening Chávez).

However, whether or not my high hopes are eventually realized, recent events have made it painfully clear that Bush’s first concern is not development, but making political hay. Of course, foreign policy is usually not a big seller in domestic politics. Usually, the electorate is far more concerned with economic conditions at home than those overseas, and right or wrong, this attitude is perfectly understandable: most Americans want a president who will, above all else, help out the people who elected him. Nonetheless, it goes without saying that foreign policy has become a major thorn in Bush’s side thanks to the Iraq war. At this point, he cannot salvage his wilted approval ratings on the domestic front alone. He needs to demonstrate some kind of ability in the international arena, if not necessarily for his own sake, then certainly for the sake of the Republican Party and its chances in the 2008 presidential race. Enter South America: a proving ground where Bush can implement a few widely-touted policies, maybe do some good for the Americas, and very likely score a point or two for the GOP in the process.

But Bush always seems to come up a little bit short in the implementation of new policies. Today, the Folha de São Paulo is reporting that a much-touted aid package which the President announced at the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce on Monday consists mostly of a conglomeration of pre-existing programs, some of which will actually receive less money this year than in the past. This revelation, obviously, has made Bush’s overtures toward South America ring hollow, and has made it plain that Washington’s top priority is containing Chávez, not encouraging regional growth. Not exactly the image the President probably wants to be presenting on the eve of a state visit focused on economic cooperation.

Now, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that I’m rooting for the Democrats to win big in 2008. However, if I’m going to invest a certain amount of energy in supporting the President’s newfound interest in the Americas – and I honestly want to be able to back him up on this one – there has to be some content to his proposals. Ultimately, what I’m trying to say is that if the President is going to play politics with aid policy, the least he could do is come up with a new program or two. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

How to Buy Books in Rio

There are plenty of good, cheap books in English in Rio de Janeiro, if you know how to look for them. There are also plenty of bad, expensive ones. The trick is to go into the used bookstores. These stores often have interesting collections on military history and on Brazilian politics. However, the volumes in these sections tend to be nicely bound – or at least, they were once nicely bound – and their prices reflect this fact, as well as the generally expensive nature of books in this country. However, somewhere in a corner or on a shelf in the back, there is usually a section of foreign-language books: titles in French, German, Spanish and English. I make a point of perusing the options in this part of the store.

For anyone who wishes to delve into this world of intrigue, there are two important rules to remember upon arriving at the Literatura Estrangeira shelf: first, look at authors’ names, not titles; second, exercise discipline. The reason for the first rule is that very often a few well-known authors are represented in the English-language section, but the books available are among their lesser-known works. At least, they are not the trademark titles. For example, last week I picked up a book by Truman Capote and one by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The pieces I found, however, were not In Cold Blood and The Great Gatsby, but Music for Chameleons and This Side of Paradise. Now the latter is reasonably well-known, but the title wouldn’t have jumped out at me if not for having seen the author’s name as well, and the former was completely unknown to me. They are both, however, worthy books, and I was happy to find that the pair of lightly used paperbacks sold for a grand total of R$8.00 – about US$4.00.

As for the discipline part, that should be pretty self-explanatory. If I’m not careful, I’m liable to look up at my wall in July to find that I’ve got a shelf full of old, torn copies of all the lesser-known (and lesser-loved) works of the great writers of the twentieth century. Not to mention, I’m going to have to find some way to get my newfound library home. But I’m not worrying about that too much: being weighed down by a few extra books is a small price to pay for being able to read on the cheap in Rio.

This isn´t Brazil-related

If you read this blog, it´s probably because you know me on some level, and if you know me on some level, it´s probably worthwhile for you to know that my very, very beloved, almost six-year-old golden retriever, Maggie, had to be put down this afternoon. She had terminal lymphoma, and we knew she was probably going to die while I was in Brazil, but it´s been a tough day for all of us. Maggie´s last few weeks were good overall: she had been taking a course of steroids, which made her very hungry but otherwise she continued to live a pretty normal life. Anyway, I´m not going to dwell on it, but that´s today´s news. I have tomorrow off from school, which is nice.