Family Christmas in Goiânia, Brasil

Patricia's family rented a chácara for the weekend for a big family Christmas party. It was a nice ranch with an adult pool, a great kids pool, foosball tables, pool tables, huge projection TV screens for music and karaoke, a huge common area, kitchen, bar, soccer field, and river. I was impressed and we only spent the equivalent of $30 for us and the kids.

The food was great and endless with everything from whole roasted baby pigs to a fantastic bitter palm salad. The beer flowed freely and was served in the typical Brazilian style, so cold you can feel the ice crystal are just starting to form. I stuck to wine mostly, but you cannot argue with beer that is that cold when you are hot and sweaty from playing soccer. There really is nothing like relaxing in the pool with a coooold beer and eating pizza.


I played soccer for the first time in my life with people that think soccer is a religion. You cannot imagine how fanatical Brazilians are about the game. When your team loses, it is perfectly normal, and half-expected, for you to tear off your teams jersey, fall on the floor and cry your eyes out. It is a good thing this was a family game. The guy you see falling in the picture had his arm in a sling and he still played hard.

I quickly discovered that I am a terrible attacker because I lack all the fancy footwork skills for controlling the ball and faking out opponents. Seeing how well these guys can control a ball is humbling. However shameful my attacker performance was, I held my own as a blocker. I blocked 11 shots at our goal, stopping the painfully fast moving balls with everything from my feet, legs, stomach, chest, head, and unfortunately, my nose. The last one stunned me for a few seconds, but since it was not gushing blood, I kept playing. My team lost the first game on Saturday and crushed them on Sunday! There was a sudden torrential rain storm while we playing that didn't faze anyone. We just slid around, falling and laughing our butts off at each other. Notice we are all barefoot.

It has been raining a lot and the river was as brown with mud. Although that did not stop her crazy cousin from diving in. We saw some medium sized monkeys, toucans, and giant scary looking ants that bite. I am wearing the required shorty-short swimming trunks that are the fashion here. It was the uniform for the weekend.

We even had Santa Claus (crazy cousin) come to give out presents to the little kids. He had a terrible beard that would not stay in place so none but the littlest of the kids bought it.

And now I am home, sunburned, I hurt all over from abusing my underused soccer muscles, I have big bruises, my ankle is swollen from being kicked, my mosquito bites itch like crazy, I am sleep deprived, a little hung over, feeling fat, and would do it again anytime.

Merry Christmas!

Election Night Party

We were invited by a friend to the private election night party for the US Embassy and I could not have been more excited. I have been waiting for this election for a long eight years, but I could never have predicted that I would be rooting for a candidate that inspired so much hope in the world.

There were about 100 people at the party. There was a lot of food, drinks, a good band, and TVs with the major channels. The life-size cutout of Obama was the most popular for pictures, and the Obama buttons disappeared right away. The bowl of McCain buttons stayed full all night. I only saw a few older people with McCain buttons and strangely, about the same number of obvious Obama supporters. Why? Because the embassy staff is not allowed to demonstrate any kind of party support. So where did all those Obama buttons go?

The US ambassador made a few remarks to the hoardes of press about how historic the election was. He did a good job of hiding his true feelings as a republican Bush appointee. But when I was standing next to him watching the positive Obama results on CNN, he was unusually silent and somber. His time to leave will soon come.

I did an interview with a newspaper reporter in a mixture of Portuguese and English because I did not know all of the words in Portuguese that I wanted to say. It felt good to see my comments in print next to the Ambassador's. This is what I said:

Votei no Obama porque é preciso uma nova forma interface dos EUA com o mundo. Ele é muito inteligente, tranquilo, e vai saber diplomático nas negociacões. Obama tocou o coração das pessoas com esperança.

Roughly translated: I voted for Obama because a new form of interface is needed between the USA and the world. He is very intelligent, calm, and knows how to be diplomatic in negotiations. Obama touched the heart of people with hope.

We went home early(12:30) since Patrícia and I both had to work in the morning, but I watched CNN until 3 am local time for the networks to call the race. I thought it was too good to be true and yet it happened. It still feels like a dream. Let's see what happens.


In my travels around the world, I have seen first hand what the world thinks of Bush. I met many many many people that are disgusted with him, fear him, and even a few people that want to kill him (some scary young men in Jordan). I love my my country dearly, but I have not been proud of my government's actions. All this has changed with such sudden, overwhelming force, that it is almost too hard to believe. How can it be possible to switch from almost universal resentment and fear of the American government to a truly polar opposite worldwide feeling of goodwill and hope? Obama has an immense challenge before him. Thankfully, he also has an unbelievable amount of support behind him: a popular majority, a Democratic congress, and the world. Facing the terrible crises that we are, I still feel hope.

Work work work

I have been loading old entries and photos but not blogging lately, so I will try to blog every time I upload.

I am working a lot, from 7:30 in the morning to 9:30 at night with a lot of driving and spaces between classes. This schedule is tiring. I put about 1100 kilometers on my scooter each month. Sometimes those kilometers are relaxed and easy, and other times time is short and I have to push the limits a bit to make it on time. Driving on a two wheeled vehicle in Brazil can be very exciting/terrifying at times.

Basically I spend my days talking to people about all sorts of subjects from personal issues to worldwide geopolitical problems. It is a fascinating cultural experience. I have come to realize just how similar humans are, as in they are primarily emotion driven creatures and only secondarily logical. I feel travel has really deepened my understanding of humanity as well as my own mind. I still think I am as emotionally blinded as the next person, I have just acquired a little personal insight and self-awareness about it. I may do something emotional and stupid, but now I am more acutely aware that it is (this certainly does not mean that I will stop doing it though, I am human after all).

This picture is Braília Shopping where I have some classes at a small school.