The Return: Hey Canadian! Part I

When I lived in Brazil, I had a varied group of friends, one of whom was Seu Leonildo, the elderly gentleman who manned the back entrance to my building. Seu Leonildo worked every second night from 7pm to 7am, opening and closing the garage door to the building every time someone came home or left. Prior to becoming the night doorman, he had worked for the building's property management company, in the accounting office. However, as pension plans in Brazil are notorious for being insufficient to allow a subsistence-based retirement, he took up his doorman duties post retirement in order to make ends meet and help his two daughters through their education. All-nighters are tough at any age. They are particularly tough when one has already reached an age when one should be at home enjoying a quiet life with one's family. In addition to having to work the graveyard shift, Seu Leonildo also had to commute back and forth to his home in Vitória de Santo Antão, a smallish city approximately 55km inland from Recife, a journey which took hours by bus each way.

Seu Leonildo was friendly with us right off the bat, a facilitating factor, I think was the fact that one of his daughter's names was also Karen. It was a instant conversation starting. Over the months, Seu Leonildo, along with some of the other doorman and women became my local confidants. They would tell me the news of the building and always keep a look out for me. They were some of the hardest to say goodbye to when I left. Old Leonildo, especially. The night before I left, he hugged me tight and hiccuped and sobbed his way through his goodbye. I was sure that he would pass out from a lack of oxygen. I wasn't sure if we would meet again.

Fast-forward to February 2009: The Return. In among the required and anticipated visits is a late night stop in at my old building. We call ahead to make sure that it is one of Seu Leonildo's nights and are surprised when one of the younger doormen is stationed at the backgate. He recognises me, smiles and we chat for a moment. He says that Leonildo now works the front door, a much better gig as far fewer people come in and out the front door than the back door. There is also a couch in the entrance lobby, but I'll leave it at that. We go around to the front, only to be greeted by a tearful Seu Leonildo who has been alerted by the backdoor guy. He lets us in and we hug and talk for ten minutes. He spends most of the time telling us that we must come visit him in Vitória and stay for one, two, three or even seven days with him and his family. Seeing that we are already more than half way through our twelve days in Recife, with a full schedule still ahead, we know that we cannot accept such an invitation. It is a important one though and we agree that we will go up for one day. We exchange phone numbers and promise to call and plan our trip inland....

The Return: The Rules are Different in Brazil

In Brazil, the rules surrounding a lot of things are different: relationships, notions of time, how to get things done, respectable topics of conversation, clothing, how much beer is too much, how much sun is too much. In sum, lots! One activity that also has a different set of rules is the fact that one can scuba dive without any kind of certification or training. Really! It's called Baptism, and it involves 40 minutes in the pool learning to use the equipment and emergency procedures followed by a full-fledged dive! Well ... when in Rome, I say!

So during our two weeks in Recife, we made plans to go diving with one of our dive-mad friends. Since I left Brazil in 2007, Flávio had become a certified instructor. So it was easy. He could do the 40 minutes in the pool and then we could all head out for two dives (also in rule flexibility, Mark did his PADI theory course in Canada but never managed to complete the test dives due to allergies to neoprene.... In Brazil ... no problem, but I digress!).

First stop: the pool. Not bad, this whole thing seems easy enough:



Second stop: 24 meters under! Still not so bad, except for my poor ears!


Okay, I admit, I was a little nervous about the whole prospect. I mean, dive courses must exist for reasons other than just to employ people and make money. But Flávio convinced me that all was well, and indeed, it was. Quite enjoyable in fact. No turtles or sharks were spotted, but in among all the colourful fish was a ginormous manta ray that was quite worrisome. Being a nervous Nelly, I kept my distance. It all makes for a good story though!

The Return: Last-Minute Luck

When I left Brazil a year and a half ago, everyone wanted to know when I would be back to visit. Not knowing exactly when I would get a chance to return, I picked Carnaval 2009 as a date that seemed as good as any. Far enough away that we will have had time to miss each other, but not too long that we will have all forgotten.

By mid-January 2009, we still hadn't done anything to action this plan (except for a clever heads-up vacation request for two weeks in February, made in June 2008 when we were asked to put our summer vacation requests into "the system"). By January 15th we hadn't moved on anything and I figured that the Plan was as good as gone. What were the chances of getting any kind of reasonable price on a ticket to Recife for lead up to Carnaval, bought a mere three weeks ahead of time?

Just to satisfy our lack of options, we hopped on expedia and did a quick ticket search. We entered our locations and dates, the timer twisted and turned, twist and turned, and we were informed that our round trip ticket from Ottawa to Recife and back - via three days in Rio no less - would cost a grand whopping total of $980 each - taxes in! Just to put this in perspective - I just bought a ticket for a trip to Saskatoon in April, and it cost EXACTLY the same price! Yup, a three hour trip to Saskatoon or a 17-hour trip to Recife and Rio.... Also in comparison, while I was living there, we never even managed to get a ticket to Sao Paulo for that price, let alone Recife (another three hours away) and Rio. It was too good to miss. We hopped on email and the phone, confirmed that all our friends would be around, verified that we could have the time off, and, after a grand total of 24 hours of contemplation, booked the tickets, clickety-click.

That was it, the grand adventure of The Return was about to begin!!

The Return: Prologue

When I came home from Brazil a year and a half ago, I promised myself that my blog would not become one of those my life was so much better when I lived in [fill in country's name here] blogs. We've all seen the type, so nostalgic about the past that one isn't able to live in the present. And frankly, while there are a lot of things that I miss about Brazil (the people, the food, the music, the tremendous sense of culture and folklore, the commitment of the grassroots to bringing about change), there is a basket-full of things that I don't (the violence, the lack of personal security and extreme inequity between rich and poor to name a few). But yes, regardless of this promise, I feel that I need to post a story or two about ...

... The Return ...

A Story in I'm Not Sure How Many Parts, but at Least a Few

Stay tuned for tomorrow's installment