Disclosure.ca

This isn't about Brazil, but is rather a plug for my friend Paul's web project, Disclosure.ca, a visual database of what it means to be Canadian. Check it out and submit a photo or two. Here is an article that was printed by the Edmonton Journal last fall.

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Website creator calls on Canadians to brag about their country - in photos: St. Albert native aims to post one image from every citizen
Edmonton Journal
Saturday, November 6, 2004
Page: A1 / FRONT
Section: News
Byline: Bill Mah
Dateline: EDMONTON
Source: The Edmonton Journal

EDMONTON - Paul Cowles wants that photo you snapped of your boyfriend at the lake. And the one he took with his cellphone of the guys partying on Whyte Avenue. That pretty shot of the sunset in Jasper, too. In fact, he wants at least one digital image taken by every Canadian for his website, disclosure.ca, an Internet photo album he hopes captures the visual essence of what it means to be Canadian.

"Canadians aren't great at being in your face and bragging about how great this country is," said Cowles, a 28-year-old St. Albert-raised computing scientist who now lives in Toronto. "I wanted to help share what it is that makes up the country to the rest of the world."

What may sound like an improbable dream is catching on, fed by the red-hot phenomenon of digital photography that allows even technophobes on cellphones to pixelate their worlds and shoot them through cyberspace. Cowles calls the goal of posting a picture from every Canadian a "utopian dream," but "if we could get hundreds of thousands of Canadians contributing to the thing, then you start to get a really true perspective of the diversity of the cultures and the age groups."

Since he started in March 2003, 138 different people have uploaded 422 photos depicting 117 locations they want to share -- everything from a chickadee munching sunflower seeds from a woman's hand in Ottawa, to postcard vistas of canoes scuttling across Lake Louise. Besides the standard drugstore calendar fare, some people send in edgier pictures such as pierced and tattooed punks in Old Strathcona. While some of the shots appear professional quality, others look like they were snapped on the run with a cellphone. Cowles already notices regional differences in photos. Ontarians send in more shots of urban life, arts and entertainment, while Albertans upload billions of megapixels worth of mountains, lakes and wildlife.

"Everyone brings their own unique perspective to it and I think that's really neat." Chris Buyze, a 25-year-old Edmonton design consultant, was motivated by national pride when he sent in a photo he took of Dodd's coal mine near Ryley, Alta., thought to be the only small domestic coal mine in Canada. "I thought that was probably an experience that most people don't do any more -- take a half-ton truck and get a load of coal for the winter. I thought it was an interesting photograph that showed a different aspect of Canadian life." Buyze says he loves the idea of exploring the country through the eyes of others.

Visitors to disclosure.ca can e-mail many of the photographers or post their comments. Not all the remarks are complimentary. One American surfer sniffed at one photo: "If this is how boring Canada is, then I don't want to visit."

Edmontonian Sean McCormick, a network administrator with a passion for photography, says he appreciates the idea of a national scrapbook. "It's just nice to share some of our history because we seem to have so little of it, at least on this side of the country," said McCormick, 36.

Cowles considers the site his hobby. He asks for donations from surfers and is looking for sponsors, but hasn't found any so far. He says the rules on submitting are generally open, but he may cut a photo if it's too violent or sexual for a child's eyes. "When the punk photos came in from Edmonton, there was one that showed a fight club scene where two guys had beat each other up and they were bleeding. It was a bit too over the top because there are kids that come to the site."

Cowles plans to release a calendar featuring 12 of the best shots. He says the proceeds will help pay the expenses of the site. He's also thinking about creating a similar album for the written word. "What's the next thing we can add to get Canadian culture that's easily digestible on the web out to more people?"

Embassy Furniture Part III

I just finished reading A Crocodile in the Pool, by Janet Ruddock. The book is a compilation of letters to friends and family written by a diplomatic wife, Janet, during her and her husband’s 1978-1980 posting to Kinshasa, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). During their posting, Janet wrote, mass-photocopied, and mailed via the diplomatic bag, long letters home on the adventures and misadventures of their two years in Africa. Clearly the precursor of both email and the blog, these letters were meant to be (mostly) lighthearted accounts of their life overseas. With Zaire constantly on the brink of some kind of disaster – political, economic, social, or natural – Janet assumed that her readers were likely worried enough about her and her husband Frank’s safety and did not need to have their fears confirmed in her letters. I have no doubt that many close calls never made it into the letters.

I have to say that reading Janet’s letters while on posting gives it added humour. Although Brazil of 2004 and Zaire of the late 1970s likely have little in common, it is clear that the Canadian Foreign Service has not changed much in the last twenty-five years. A hundred pages into the book, one passage in particular made me howl. I will quote it here, and you will just have to believe me when I say that I only received a copy of this book this past December, several weeks after writing my blog entry on the embassy lamps.

"... During our absence in Rwanda and Burundi, a new couch and matching love seat arrived for the living room. Two co-ordinating chairs, a hassock and a set of coffee tables complete the ensemble. Unfortunately the shipment included no lamps. After seven months with no lamps, one of our two wall scones has stopped working. Hearing that we had only one functioning light in the entire living room, the ambassador’s wife invited me to choose from unneeded lamps kept in the storeroom at the residence.

Wondering why Frank and I had not spoken up sooner, she encouraged me to take whatever she had available. Admittedly, she confessed to relegating said lamps to the storeroom due to their unfashionable appearance. We chuckled at the wide variety of truly ugly lamps and lampshades shipped from Canada for our use and pleasure. Selecting the least distasteful of the lot, I thanked her for the much appreciated, if somewhat unattractive lamps...."

There you have it. Apparently these lamps were not even attractive in the 70s!! Perhaps a useful government survey would be to survey what percentage of diplomatic lamps permanently reside in storerooms.

Published in 2001, copies of A Crocodile in the Pool can be ordered from the General Store Publishing House.

Mousse de Maracujá (a nice complement to a whole lot of beef)

One of my favourite Brazilian desserts is mousse de maracujá or passion fruit mousse. Although there are over four hundred different varieties of the passion flower, only a few dozen produce edible fruit, the most common types being the yellow, purple, sweet, and giant. Some varieties are also known by the name granadilla.

The passion fruit was named in the 1500s by Spanish missionaries in the Americas who likened the plant's flower to the Passion of Christ, as each part of the flower represented an aspect of Christ's crucifiction (the crown of thorns, the nails, the whips) and even the leaves representing the grasping hands of the soldiers. In Portuguese and Spanish, a variation of the indigenous word for the fruit is more commonly used.

Alone, the yellowy-orange pulp of the passion fruit has a tangy, slightly sour taste. Made into a mousse, it is a delicious mixture of sweet and sour that just melts in the mouth. It's possible to find fresh passion fruit in Canada, but it isn't cheap, with individual fruits costing approximately C$1 each. Another option is to use concentrate juice or frozen pulp available at Latin American grocery stores.

It turns out that passion fruit is a relaxant, a fact I didn't know for the longest time. When I did finally discover this, my extreme tiredness after overdosing on all things passion fruit became much clearer! Now I try to limit my consumption to evenings when it is getting closer to time for bed anyway. A quick check of natural medicines in a Canadian pharmacy showed that indeed, passion fruit was an ingredient in many products.

Although the mousse is one of my favourite passion fruit creations, the fruit is also terrific for sauces and vinaigrettes. For those who wish to try their hands at Portuguese, the Maracujá website has many terrific-looking recipes. A recipe in English for chicken salad with passion fruit vinaigrette can be found on the Fresh King website.

In the meantime, try out an easy version of Mousse de Maracujá:

1 can sweetened condensed milk (I never said that the dessert was particularly healthy, although the fruit themselves are full of good things)
same measure of passion fruit juice
3 egg whites
1 envelope unflavoured gelatin

Blend the condensed milk and passion fruit juice. Dissolve the gelatin according to the packages instructions. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the condensed milk / juice mixture. Add the gelatin and stir. Pour into molds and refrigerate until set. Enjoy!

Death by Beef

Quintessential Brazil is the churrascaria, or barbeque. A churrascaria is a restaurant (usually immense in size) which, for a small fee, feeds you cut after cut of beef until you cry out for mercy. Waiters circulate from table to table with cuts of meat on skewers in one hand and large sharp knives (really, they are more like swords) in the other. People heading towards the salad bar or the washroom should exercise extreme caution. These are not toys. Customers indicate their receptiveness to eating more beef by flipping individual or table-based coasters to the green “yes please” or the red “no thanks” side. Given the green light, waiters will then stop at a table and offer customers a slice or two of their wares. Most churrascarias also have large and impressive salad bars which offer enough options to satisfy the hungriest of vegetarians.

The danger of the churrascaria is the distinct possibility that you will consume far too much meat. The problem is that it is just so tempting as it parades past that it is difficult to resist yet another piece of meat. Aside from my first few experiences at the churrascarias, I mostly manage to not overindulge. However, I have woken up on several occasions the morning after a churrascaria dinner, still full from over consumption. On the positive side, my iron levels are doing just fine!

Another fun factor at some churrascarias is the fact that the waiters like to put on a bit of a show, feigning offence at the fact that you never accept their particular cut. Nell and I went to the churrascaria near my place one of her nights in Sao Paulo. We had a terrific time watching the show of waiters as they tried to get us to accept skewered chicken hearts and other delicacies. One waiter was particularly offended with the fact that after telling him that we were absolutely stuffed, we went on to order shots of liquor from one of his colleagues. Apparently, this was cause for great consternation. As a brief aside, the purchase of said liquors led to our acquisition of the two shot glasses, a green ceramic cow foot and a green ceramic cow head. As you can imagine, they make lovely additions to my glassware collection!

On a more cultural note, the churrascaria fills a very special place in the heart of most Brazilians. Extended families will gather at churrascarias on weekends and in the evenings and will enjoy many hours of eating, talking, laughing and drinking. Most houses have built in churrascos in the backyard and any weekend or holiday is occasion to bring the family together for some barbequed meat. There is a range of churrascarias to fit almost any budget, from the R$9 Claire and I spent in Shopping Ibirapuera to R$55 at Fogo do Chao, one of the top churrascarias in Sao Paulo.

Joel

Meet Joel. Joel is one of three resident monkeys at the lodge where we stayed in the Amazon. Joel came to the lodge after having had his shoulder broken during an alligator attack. The lodge’s staff took him to a vet and had his shoulder mended. Somehow Joel managed to break his other shoulder, and after the lodge’s staff took care of that one too, Joel permanently attached himself to the lodge and its staff.

Joel is a pretty cute little guy, which, in fact, is lucky for him, since aside from his cuteness he can have somewhat of an assertive personality. Joel loves people. He loves following people, watching people, jumping on unsuspecting people’s heads, chasing people around trees, and napping with people in hammocks. He also loves other things about people, especially girl-people, but we won’t go there! His tragic flaw is that his playing and roughhousing can easily turn into aggression. Most people who have played with Joel end up with a few bites marks here and there. Of course, everyone forgives Joel for his flaws as he is fascinating to watch. In fact, we spent many an hour simply following his antics. Truly, he is like a funny little person with a definite personality.

It is unclear what will happen to Joel as he grows older. At the moment, he is two years old and is not fully developed. In the next two years his now non-existent fangs were grow, he will at least double in size, and he will become even more aggressive in his search for girl-monkey companionship. The question is whether or not he is too attached to the lodge to be able to return to life in the forest. Of course, one possibility would be for him and his hopefully acquired girl monkey to live in the forest, while maintaining a more peripheral link to the lodge, much in the way that the lodge’s other two monkeys do.

Amazon Adventure

On January 10th, Nell, Claire and I met in Manaus for the start of our Amazon Adventure. I flew to Manaus from Sao Paulo, with a stop in Brasilia, while Nell and Claire flew in on the milk run from Recife. Our jungle adventure started the next morning when the folks from the tour company picked us up to take us to their lodge in the middle of the Amazon. It took four hours to get to the lodge, an hour by boat, forty minutes by minivan and then another two hours by boat to the lodge, located on one of the Amazon’s tributaries.

The lodge is high up in the treetops with its various buildings -- cabins, dining lodge, kitchen -- being supported on stilts, some as high as thirteen or fourteen metres off the ground. The level of water in the Amazon can rise up to twelve metres in the rainy season, so houses need to be higher than this. When the water is high, the houses float just above the water, while in the dry season, they tower metres and metres above the ground. Floating houses, which rise and fall with the waters are also common.

While we were in the Amazon, the water level had started to rise, but was nowhere near its full potential. At certain points while traveling by boat we were literally navigating above the treetops! It’s a pretty cool sensation. As for the houses on the stilts, they would shake when anyone would walk by on the connecting walkways.

The lodge organizes day or half-day activities for its guests, including dolphin watching, piranha fishing, walks in the jungle, and visiting an old man who taps rubber. Piranha fishing was quite the experience. The first afternoon, we went out in a motorized canoe to the lodge’s secret location for “catching the big one”. Well … the piranhas were hungry that day and the big one was definitely there. We never actually caught anything though, as the fish kept biting not only the chunks of meat that we were using as bait, but also the hook and line! Once the majority of our hooks had been eaten, we headed back home. The next day we went to a new location and managed to catch a few small piranhas. Deep down, I suspected that we kept catching the same one, but it’s hard to say for sure.

The jungle walk was interesting. The most prominent features of the jungle are HUGE ferns and palm leaves, an overabundance of enormous termite colonies (these nasty guys are taking over the jungle ….), vines that adopt and then strangle the life out of the trees, and killer ants. We even swung from real “tarzan vines” that we came across. I am surprised that Tarzan didn’t wear gloves – the thorns on the vines are brutal!

Over all, we had a fun time in the jungle. It would have been nice to have done a few more hikes or canoe trips, but the activities organized by the lodge did give a good overview of life (human and other) in the Amazon.

Sao Paulo from Above

Sao Paulo can be a pretty intimidating place. Eighteen million people; who knows how many million cars, trucks, and motorcycles; over a thousand bus lines (not counting the intercity ones) employing 11,000 buses; four thousand five hundred traffic lights; the list goes on....

One of the best angles from which to view Sao Paulo is from above, where one can truly appreciate the enormity, and even the urban beauty (gasp), of the city. There are several spots in town where one can go to gawk at the horizon-to-horizon skyscrapers. A word of warning, except for the Banespa tower, these places are all pretty high-end ... those who find it difficult to reconcile the enormous gap between the haves and the have-nots in Brazil, might find it more difficult to enjoy their drink.

The View (not sure why the name is in English) is a chic – or chuchi, as my friend Ysa has learned to say in Paraguay – rooftop bar located on the 30th floor of a hotel just off Paulista Avenue. It’ll likely be one of the more expensive caipirinhas that you’ll ever order (R$12), but the view is worth it. Beer and coffee are closer to average.
Location: Alameda Santos, 981, Cerqueiria César.

Terraço Italia is another chic bar / restaurant, this time located on the 41st and 42nd floors of the Edifício Itália in the historic centre. I haven’t been yet, having missed a few opportunities in the recent past. The 360º view is said to be absolutely spectacular.
Location: Avenida Ipiranga, 344, República.

The Banespa Tower, a replica of the Empire State Building in New York, is a banking headquarters with a lookout on the 35th floor open to the public for free during working hours. Cool views, no food purchases necessary!
Location: Rua João Brícola, 24, Centro.

Skye Bar is another one I haven’t yet made it to, but is supposed to offer a hip location with a cool view. Not quite as high as The View, Terraço Italia, or the Banespa Tower, Syke is located on the top floor of the Hotel Unique, a hotel designed in the shape of a giant boat (or watermelon, say some). Wet when it rains (there is no roof), the bar overlooks Jardins and Ibirapueira Park.
Location: Avenida Brigadeiro Luis Antônio, 4700, Jardim Paulista.

I am a Person!

Today I became a person! I am now the proud owner of my very own CPF (personal registration number). I don’t actually have the card yet, but I do have the number, which is just as good. This is quite an exciting development, sixteen weeks in the making. With this all-important number I can now:

- have my sea shipment cleared from customs;
- start (!) the process of buying a car;
- go to a health clinic or hospital;
- board an airplane without my passport;
- get a gym membership;
- rent a video from the local video store (this is not a joke, CPFs are necessary in order to get a video club membership).

Long live personhood!

The Air Shipment

On the morning of December 29th, boxes 23 through 58 of my shipment to Brazil arrived on my doorstep. Who knew that first, I owned so many things, and second, I thought it a good idea to ship them all to Brazil. To be fair, I did leave a lot of stuff behind, but as I watched the boxes and boxes of stuff piling into my kitchen, I realized that a lot of it followed me here as well. Then came the task of unpacking all the boxes and finding new homes for my possessions. Overall, there were no big surprises, no bags of garbage, no mice making their home in my bathroom towels, no unwanted insects or mold. There were a few things that did make me chuckle though: the Christmas tree and decorations (clearly a few days too late); a open-top sugar bowl with sugar still in it (a little bit stale by now); the computer and monitor without the keyboard and mouse; several piles of miscellaneous bills, receipts and envelopes; and one box which was clearly intended for long-term storage. In all, it was a good experience. Nothing was broken or chipped and everything has found a home for the moment. I’m crossing my fingers for the same luck for the sea shipment.

New Years in Rio

This year, I spent New Years Eve on Copacabana Beach with two million of my closest friends. News Years in Rio is something else! The city starts filling up in the days before new years and the hotels benefit by creating three or four-day packages for guests. My initial search for a hotel room resulted in the discovery of the R$5000 room at the Copacabana Palace. Granted the Palace is the chiquest hotels in Rio, but the C$2250 price tag seemed a little steep for a double room! Fortunately, there were a few slightly better deals to be had nearby.

We were a gang of five for the trip, Nell and Claire visiting from Canada, Ysa in from Paraguay, and Simone, a local colleague from the Embassy. We also met up with some Canadian / Brazilian friends who have recently moved to Brazil. The morning and early afternoon was spent lazing around Ipanema Beach (yes ... we also went to the bar from which Tom Jobim caught a glimpse of the girl from Ipanema ....). The beach was a lot of fun, as Claire and Nell were introduced to the variety of products that can be bought on a popular Brazilian beach by simply staying put. Some of the more interesting items include fried cheese (ambulant vendors carry around little charcoal barbeques and they will fry you up cubes of cheese on a stick. It's quite yummy!); bikinis (in case you either forgot yours or realised that yours has far too much material); clothes (this was a good thing since in my haste to pack for my four days in Rio, I forgot to pack any t-shirts. Nice ....); and beer and hard liquor (rules governing public drinking in Brazil are lax to say the least).

Towards the end of the afternoon, we headed back home to get ready for the evening. In Rio, it is tradition to dress all in white for New Years Eve in honour of the goddess of the sea Iemanja. Although Brazil is majoritarily Roman Catholic, there are two religious movements -- Candomble and Umbanda -- which blend elements of Catholicism with African religions brought over by the slaves during the slave trade between the 16th and 19th centuries. One of the main African religious influences came from the Yoruba from Nigeria and Benin who worshipped a pantheon of sixteen deities, or orishas (orixas, in Portuguese), all under the tutelage of the main god Olodumare. The structural similarity between the Yoruban god and deities and the Catholic hierarchy of the saints, led to an easy syncretisation between the two religions, and Candomble and subsequently Umbanda were born.

Iemanja is the goddess of sea and the patron saint of sailors and fishermen. She also overseas fertility and motherhood and is depicted as either a mermaid or a woman dressed in white and blue with pearls. Aside from dressing in white, it is custom to make offerings to Iemanja on New Years Eve. Flowers are thrown into the sea and offerings of candles, perfume, rice, and more flowers are set up on the beach. The streets of Rio are overflowing with flower vendors throughout the day. It is an amazing site to see millions of people all dressed in white wading into the ocean and throwing white lilies and other flowers into the waves.

Our little group participated in the rituals and enjoyed the rest of the festivities on the beach -- fireworks, concerts, and shows. There was a moment of panic when we were tossing our flowers into the ocean and the current swept away my sandals. Images of having to walk home through the post-party streets of Rio with no shoes was not a welcome thought. Fortunately, some children found my shoes several metres away where they had resurfaced. The evening -- and my soles / souls -- were saved.

"The ocean is large, the sea is a road without end, waters make up more than half the world, they are three-quarters of it, and all that belongs to Iemanja. There she combs her hair (beautiful slave girls come with combs of silver and ivory), hears the prayers of the women of the sea, unleashes storms, chooses the men she is to take on the bottomless journey to the depths of the sea. And it is here that her feast takes place. Because the night of the feast of Iemanja is a thing of beauty. On those nights the sea is of a color between blue and green, the moon is always in the sky, the stars accompany the lanterns on the sloops, Iemanja slowly spreads her hair out toward the sea and there is nothing in the world as beautiful (sailors on big ships that travel all over always say) than the color that emerges from the mingling of Iemanja`s hair with the sea." - Jorge Amado

A Complicated Kindness

The January pick for yowbooks is A Complicated Kindness, by Miriam Toews. A coming-of-age story set in an isolated Mennonite community in Manitoba, the novel is narrated by sixteen year old Nomi Nickel who is trying to come to terms with her mother and sister's flight from home and community while also dealing with other usual teenage angsts (boys, drugs, school, the future, Happy Farms Chicken Abatoire....). Since I will be floating down the Amazon the day of the meeting, I will post my impressions here.

Overall Enjoyment: 7 (It takes everything I have to resist those decimal points Tim!)
Literary Quality: 6
Suitability for a Bookclub discussion: Hard to tell. Perhaps a 5. I'm wondering if we should drop this category -- it might prejudice people from the beginning!

Cynical, sad, as well as funny (in a dark kind of way), I enjoyed the book, although a quick search on the Internet indicates to me that most people either really loved it or totally hated it. Not surprisingly, a lot of the commentaries revolve around the dismal portrayal of life as a teen, or life in general, in the community of East Village. At the very least, it will spurn discussion (hmmmmm ... maybe I should adjust my "suitability" rating).

One of the things that I enjoyed was the occasional references to the Canadian Mennonites living in Paraguay. Approximately 9,000 strong, these Canadian Paraguayans, normally living isolated lives in the wilds (Chaco), of Paraguay are becoming increasingly visible due to changes in Canadian citizenship policy. Canadian children born after February 14, 1977 outside of Canada, to a Canadian parent also born outside of Canada will lose their citizenship if they do not have a year or so of residency in Canada before their twenty-eigth birthday. Rushing to not lose this link, Canadian Paraguayans are rushing to Canada en masse to live with long lost relatives and complete a year of two of high school. Some of them have even made it into the book! By the way -- if you fall into this category of Canadian citizenship, best to visit the Canadian Embassy or Consulate nearest you.

Enjoy the discussion! For non-yowbookers, here is a link to the first chapter of the book.

Also, here is a link to a September 2004 article in Maclean's on the Canadian Mennonites in Paraguay.