We had a wonderful Thanksgiving here in Rio, even though we are missing our families during the holidays.

Our Thanksgiving festivities started at school, where my American History class and I celebrated by reading historical Thanksgiving documents, including George Washington’s and Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving proclamations. The kids brought in desserts to share after the school cafeteria’s Thanksgiving turkey lunch, and I baked them a pumpkin pie, since most of them had never tasted one before. Then, we watched Charlie Brown’s Thanksgiving, in true American tradition.

After school, we were invited by our friends Rhonda and Chris to their family’s Thanksgiving celebration, where we ate far too much Cajun-style turkey, stuffing, and pie with some fellow teachers and friends from church. It was a great holiday, and we are thankful that we had wonderful friends to spend it with.

I meant to write more about the Olympics immediately after they were over, but I’ve been sick for the last week, which tends to get in the way of things like that for me.

Anyway, we’ve both always enjoyed the Olympics, and watching them in a different country was a unique experience. There’s a lot less of the American teams, naturally, but you get to see a lot of sports that you wouldn’t in the US. Sometimes, that’s because these sports are dumb, like handball and racewalking. Other times, though, they’re pretty cool, like judo. And some sports, there’s a good deal of both Brazilians and Americans–specifically in volleyball, which the two countries collectively dominate. There was also a good deal of swimming on TV, because everyone loves Michael Phelps. Brazil also won their first swimming gold this year.

They did not, however, win the gold in soccer, much to the consternation of pretty much the whole nation. They were stuck with the bronze, after a stunning 3-0 defeat at the hands of the hated Argentinians. My 7th grade class, though, has as many Argentinians as there are Brazilians, so when I announced the score in the middle of a quiz, there was delightful consternation. Good times.

The Olympics are not just about bitter national rivalries, though. They’re also about kitschy corporate promotions. Here in South America, McDonalds treated us to the “China Menu“. This includes three items– the “Beijing Burger,” a hamburger with chop suey on it; “Rice Sticks,” two bricks of fried rice, deep fried; the “Imperial Dessert,” a sundae with some kind of banana fritter, topped with crystallized, caramelized sugar. The first is terrible (there’s a reason you don’t put chop suey on burgers, and Brazil isn’t exactly known for its chop suey in the first place), the second is pretty good (could use some bits of pork), and the third is fantastic. The term ‘Beijing Burger,’ though, is a bit odd, considering that they call Beijing “Pequim” here.

This is not, however, the strangest thing about the Olympics in Brazil. Brazilians have an odd relationship with/understanding of China. lt reveals itself in occasionally odd ways–ways that might be considered insensitive by, say, most of the civilized world. Things like a takeout place called “China In Box.” So then we were watching the Olympics on ESPN Brasil, and saw this:

And we thought to ourselves, “was that really what it looked like?”

Oh yes, it certainly was. It was the mascot for their coverage of the games, and we saw it dozens more times.

Yes, Brazil is definitely a different country.

Things are coming together pretty well for our Brazilian Feast this Friday. This weekend we put together the video, hashed out the menu and the rest of the entertainment, and we’ve gotten a good chunk of RSVPs–but we want more! if you’re in the Seattle area, you should definitely come–this Friday at 7 PM. If you’re not anywhere near Seattle, you probably know someone who is. RSVP to tim /at/ timothygoddard.com or in the comments here.

The Feast will be at Haller Lake Baptist Church, which is located pretty conveniently, just off of both 99 and I-5 in North Seattle. Click ‘read the rest’ for a map. Hope to see you there!
(more…)

We’re having a great time in the US so far. We went camping last week, and today we had the opportunity to share our experiences with the folks at Haller Lake Baptist Church.

We’d like to have the chance to share our experiences–and some fabulous Brazilian food–with everyone else, too. So, we’re having a Brazilian Feast in a couple weeks. It will be at at Haller Lake Baptist Church at 14054 Wallingford Avenue N in Seattle—Google Map available here—at 7 PM on July 25. If you’re in the Seattle area, we would really love to have you come, and feel free to bring a friend or two. One of the purposes of this dinner is to help raise money for our plane tickets back to Brazil, so we’re suggesting donations of $8 per person and $5 per child under 12, up to $25 per family. Did I mention that Brazilian food is fantastic? Because it is.

If you’d like to come, please drop me an RSVP at tim /at/ timothygoddard.com so we have some idea of how much food to bring. Hope to see you there!

A word about the fruits and vegetables here in Brazil: they are different. Some of them are very different. Like these:

These are maxixi (mah-shee-shee), a cucumber-like vegetable. Tasty, but a pain to peel.

Also, the best oranges are, in fact, greens:

And the tastiest bananas are the size of my thumb. I call them “thumbnanas.”

Well, it has been a wet and wild week. Since Saturday night, it has rained more or less constantly, and the temperature has stayed in the sixties and seventies. It’s hard to believe that we spent our Saturday in the nineties, sailing a blue ocean on a crystal clear day.

As a Christmas gift, ICS-Rio took all its employees on a cruise to Ilha Grande, off the coast of Rio to the South. About 90 people went, and we had a great time. The boat was about 40 feet long, with benches in the back for sitting and a padded center section for lying in the shade or sun. The day was beautiful, and the Atlantic was calm. At one point, we stopped and just jumped off the boat to swim in the ocean. Here I am, among a crowd of my fellow employees and their families.

We stopped about halfway through the cruise near Angra, at a little cove with an old pirate church.

These boats were like ours:

The beach wasn’t the only thing that was good about the cruise–the food was also great. The school provided coxinhas, Guarana, sandwiches, and two huge chocolate and maracuja cakes. And Romeo e Julieta.

By the end of the day, we were pretty happy (and sunburned) campers.

This is yesterday’s dinner. Beans, rice & meat, served with vegetables–it’s kind of standard around here. And picturesque.

This is Lorraine’s classroom. Mine looks significantly different, it being a lab. These photos were taken with our nifty new cell phone, provided by the school. And right now, I’m listening to music on it. I told you it was nifty.

Today we went with the other married couple at the school across the Lagoa Marapendi on their apartment’s little ferry (”bolsa”, which also means purse…). This is a view of Union Church (the pointy thing) and the high school building (the square thing just behind the trees) from the boat ride.

Across the lagoa is the beach! Finally!

Also across the lagoa is a great little restaurant. Lorraine got a sandwhich called “Nhoc Croc” (pronounced “nyoc croc”). It’s melted cheddar cheese mixed with shredded chicken and topped with little pik-nik potato things. It was really really good. I had a parma ham sandwich, which was also good.

On the way to and from the bolsa, there were many crabs, like this one, eyeing us suspiciously.

If anyone is particularly curious about any aspect of our lives here, let us know, and we’ll see what kind of pictures we can take.

Today we were at Carrefour (think Fred Meyer, but French. And in Brazil.), and, looking ahead to a lengthy walk home, we both decided to get something to drink. Lorraine took only water. I was feeling adventurous, and thought I’d try some cashew juice.

Yes, you heard it right. Cashew juice. You see, the nut we all love so dearly comes from a fruit, and in Brazil, they turn this fruit into juice. And why not? Fruit is made to be juiced, right?

I’ll tell you why not. Because it tastes terrible. I made Lorraine try it, and she said, “It tastes like orange juice mixed with poop.” It was an apt description. Here’s my own attempt at putting the terrifying event into words: have you ever eaten an Oregon grape (note: they aren’t really grapes)? Imagine that someone had made Oregon grape juice, and then made it a little less bitter, but quite a bit fouler tasting. That’s pretty much cashew juice. Or “suco de caju” as they put it here.

In significantly more heartening news, I saw my first Rio monkey today. That was pretty neat.