Closing Time

So ends the final of my five weeks here at IPE in Nazare Paulista, Brazil! It's been awhile since I last wrote so I'll start with tales of the week before this past one. It was a good one--at some point I managed to partly overcome the stir-craziness I nearly succumbed to and feel again pretty delighted to be here. Others did not quite get to that point; several times heard someone refer to this place as a prison. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I guess; if this is prison, I can't imagine what paradise looks like.

Academically, the focus of that week was, as per usual, our individual projects, but also conservation medicine, and our "field practicals." The unit on conservation medicine entailed us casually breaking into groups of five to research and then create a PowerPoint presentation about a disease that affects both human and animals. My group did the Nipah virus, which affects pigs and humans, while the others explored malaria, West Nile virus, and Lyme disease (did anyone else not now that the latter gets its name from the Connecticut Lymes? I always thought it was just a coincidence). Very interesting to look at, for a change, ways the environment can affect people, rather than vice versa.

The field practicals were the closest we got to a test during SEE-U, I suppose, as it was timed and graded independently of our other coursework. It, like most of our projects here, entailed we 20 being divided into four groups of five but then, left largely to our own devices, each group had to design an experiment having to do with human effects on the Atlantic Forest, conduct it, and present it in the form of a PowerPoint Presentation--one of many we've done since we got here, but this one for a grade. My group--consisting of me, Darcy, Ethan, Aylesse, and Chaim--decided to look at--what else--forest fragments.

Specifically, we wanted to examine the insect biodiversity of forest fragments. We looked at two fragments--one fairly large, one very small--and for each, using those lovely aspirators and beat sheets I blogged about earlier, measured the ratio of insect biodiversity at the edge to the insect biodiversity of the interior. Our hypothesis was that the difference between edge and interior would be more pronounced in the large fragment than in the small fragment. It turned out to be wrong, but, crafty scientists that we are, we came up with several likely sources of error, which I won't go into here, lest I drive those of you still awake to completely close your fluttering eyelids.

All in all, the activity was pretty fun--less stressful or nerve wracking than we thought it might be--and it's neat that, after just four weeks, we were all fairly comfortable designing, conducting, and presenting a[n almost] professional-quality science experiment in a very short period of time. That said, for me, pairing the words science and experiment immediately conjures images of seventh grade--perhaps the antithesis of professional, although JoJoKin and I did take first place in the citywide fair that year (suck on that, Jessie B).

The weekend was a lot of fun as well. The theme of Thursday's social was "Dress Like Your Roommate," which ended up being hilarious--we hadn't realized how distinctly everyone dressed. I kept seeing Olivia, wearing my field clothes, out of the corner of my eye and wondering for a split second how I was looking at myself without a mirror. I also wondered what I was thinking when I composed that particular outfit, which I've repeated many times on this trip.On Saturday, we went back to Busca Vida, the cachaçaria (like a brewery but where they make cachaça instead) we went to the first weekend. Right now in Brazil people are celebrating Festa Junina, so there was a band performing and many people were dressed like hicks--I still haven't figured out exactly why, though someone described it to me as a "country festival."

The band was OK, the caipirinhas were GREAT--I ordered mine with mango, lime, and chili pepper. I wanted a whole pepper but the bartender was skeptical so I had to work up to it--he put just a tip in my first one and when I came back for another, he used the remainder. Sweet, bitter, spicy--I can still taste the magic. Speaking of magic drinks, I have also come to adore Guarana soda, which is an extremely popular drink in Brazil. Indescribable flavor (I seriously can't think of words, but I'll try harder the next time I drink it) that I know I will crave and probably have a hard time finding in the States. Oh well--shouldn't be drinking soda anyway!

I spent the rest of the weekend and into this past week finishing up my field work. This consisted of, on several days, being chauffeured by sweet Eduardo (who actually goes by Eduardinho, or "Little Eduardo--"he's pretty short) to various forest fragments to test abiotic conditions. Eduardinho's car cracks me up--mostly because it reminds me of a certain, white-with-red-plush-interior, smoke-infused Honda Accord (?) in whose back seat I passed so many delightful hours as a child, driving up and down Whalley Avenue.

These last days of field work were much more enjoyable than the first, because I was accompanied by Ze, one of our trusty field assistants, and boy, can he wield a machete. It came in most handy, surprisingly, not in slicing through vines but rather in scaring away a pack of scary, scary dogs that were unchained and lunging at us from the end of someone's driveway. Even so, I was glad to be done with the actual experiment part of my project--I love nature and all, but I don't think I'm quite cut out for field research.

Monday morning was spent learning about conservation conflict resolution management (what a jargon-y mouthful), and on Monday afternoon we engaged in a simulation. I played the role of a developer who wanted to build golf courses and planned communities alongside a river, and had to haggle with the local government, a mining company, some Native Americans, the water company, a river protection society, etc. It was kind of fun but at times incredibly frustrating, and tensions rose very high. Made me think a lot about New Haven and my parents, who are a local politician and a member of the zoning board, respectively--don't know if I could do what they do.

By Tuesday I had completed my field work, and went to work analyzing my data. In brief, my project centered on a pair of comparisons: a comparison of forest-edge and forest-interior and a comparison of forest-road edge and forest-reservoir edge. The abiotic factors I compared were: air temperature, air humidity, soil moisture, sunlight, and wind. When I plugged my data into statistical tests on Microsoft Excel, I found that none of these factors differed significantly from forest edge to forest interior, and that two of them did differ significantly from forest-road edge to forest-reservoir interior. The implication of this is that not all forest edges (which are results of forest fragmentation, a huge problem in Brazil) are the same--this could be an important piece of information in regards to reforestation. By late Wednesday night, fueled by Guarana soda and some of the cheesiest, greasiest pizza I've ever had, I had translated my findings into a PowerPoint presentation. If anyone besides my mother would like to see it, let me know and I'll CC you on the e-mail.

And then, yesterday, for the grand finale, we organized a "conference" in which each student had 15 minutes with which to present their project and field questions. I was really impressed by my fellow students' work; every project seemed scientifically sound and professional, and it was really interesting to see which aspects of the Atlantic Forest and conservation people had lighted upon. Many, like me, chose an abiotic angle, but others looked at animals (Titi monkeys, warblers), insects, and even people (Olivia, armed with her flawless Portuguese, chose something sociological).

Last night we began the celebration of our accomplishments by attending a Festa Junina party, at a campus similar to IPE, about 20 minutes away. There was a bonfire, and treats (popcorn, hotdogs, cake, mulled wine, cachaca boiled with ginger and cloves), and dancing, and even a mock wedding, which is a Festa Junina tradition. It was a lot of fun, but I drank too much cheap, incredibly sweet red wine (from a jug) which left me today with a pretty bad headache, and I somehow burned a small hole (sparks from the fire?) in my Patagonia fleece. I also smoked part of a cigar, which was delicious.

Tonight, at IPE, we're having our own Festa Junina party. The kitchen staff has been working hard all day, preparing food (I saw a tray of candied apples, and a pot of hot dogs, and someone was husking corn), setting up a bonfire, and stringing flags. Not sure who, if anyone, will be getting "married," but Juliana has just informed me that there will be a capoeira show, which should be great. I saw a little capoeira in Paraty and was totally enthralled and left wanting more. Capoeira, should you not care/have time to click on that hyperlink, is a Brazilian blend of martial art, game, and dance.

Tomorrow, to Sao Paulo, where I'll spend a week--the first few days with a new friend, Whitney, the last with good ol' Tamar. After that, to Olivia's grandmother's farm, which is in Itatiaia, about halfway between Sao Paulo and Rio, for the weekend. Then a week in Rio, followed by a weekend in Angra, which is back towards Sao Paulo, visiting one of Olivia's many, many aunts (her mother is one of 13). That Sunday I'll spend the night near the Sao Paulo airport and in the morning, fly to Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, for a week alone--more on this in the next post. On the 21st I fly into Buenos Aires! I really can't wait--I miss New York already, and Jessica Cohen says that it's the only city she's been to that rivals it.

I'm excited for future adventures, but a little sad to end this one. Like anything else, it's had its ups and downs, but overall, it has been a truly fantastic experience. I learned an incredible amount (half a semester's worth in just five weeks!)--about the environment, about conservation, about the scientific method, about other people, about myself, about how much I still don't know, about all of those things. I met some wonderful people, ate pounds and pounds of delicious food, spent time in a part of Brazil that I never would have otherwise (this place is decidedly not a tourist destination).

In accordance with the HGBG guide-to-style, I will end this post, and SEE-U, with a pair of lists.

Things I Will Miss

- the food (duh), specifically: cafe da tarde (equivalent of English teatime--every culture should have some version of this), the unlimited supply of fruit (persimmons, and passion fruits and mangoes, oh my), the fresh, flavorful vegetables, and a particular, rather sweet dish involving chickpeas, squash, and pureed pumpkin
- the IPE campus (turns out that one of the founders of IPE was a interior designer before she was a conservationist, which explains why this place is so aesthetically pleasing)
- the delightful, capable IPE staff, who slaved over hot stoves and made our beds and managed to smile sweetly all the while
- Nazare Paulista, the beautiful, peaceful area that IPE calls home
- the sunsets over the reservoir -- truly spectacular and it KILLS me that these pictures dilute the colors so much
- Tim, Kaitlin, Fernando, and Juliana (who has possibly the best laugh of anyone I've ever met), who are some of the most excellent, patient educators I've been lucky enough to study under. Thank you, sincerely.
- Chato, IPE's resident mutt, who accompanied me on so many of my trips to the field and who has an old soul (SUCH good dog; if I could take him home with me, I would)
- the Atlantic Forest wildlife, particularly the butterflies, and the birds: this might just be the beginning of a lifelong passion for ornithology--I just bought a t-shirt with a hummingbird on it from the IPE gift shop

Things I Regret

- that I didn't see more wildlife -- Though others claim to see them everywhere, somehow I only caught one glimpse of monkeys! I'd also have liked to spy on an armadillo, another sloth or two, more birds, etc. I wish parakeets moved slower and flew lower.
- that I didn't learn a bit more about humans in Nazare -- I would love to have spent more time getting familiar with the culture and daily life here
- that I sometimes didn't conduct myself according to the standard of maturity I try to maintain
- that I didn't get a massage from David, the neighborhood masseuse who they say works magic
- that I don't speak Portuguese
- that I never made it kayaking
- that I can't eat Brazil, both literally and figuratively

As a final note: HELP SAVE THE ATLANTIC FOREST, by sending a donation or buying a t-shirt. There are many, many reasons why you should do this (the very future of the planet partly depends on it) but I'll offer the most cursory and superficial: this place is cool. And as the world slowly transforms into one giant, uncool strip mall, it's up to you and me to help preserve what cool remains.

Tchau! Obrigada!

More pictures coming soon to my Picasa page.

God Bless the Beach

Picinguaba was just what the doctor ordered. Early Monday morning we took a four-hour bus ride up the coast, stopping only for lunch in a beach town called Ubatuba. Our final destination was a national reserve called Nucleo Picinguaba. No sooner had we stepped off the bus and rubbed the sleep from our eyes than were we thrust into what's known as a BioBlitz. Our mission was to record or collect every single species we could find on the beach and in the estuary behind it. Usually a BioBlitz is conducted over a 24-hour period but we did a mini-blitz in two hours. We split into teams; I was on the bird team. I am finding myself more and more fascinated by birds, as deeply nerdy as I consider bird-lovers to be. They can FLY. That's nuts. We recorded 10 bird species, most notable perhaps the vulture, of which there were many. A little creepy, yes, but totally harmless, unless you are a dead animal.

Our accommodations were comfortable but definitely a step down from the luxury we'd gotten used to at IPE. We slept in a barrack-like dormitory with one room of bunk beds each for boys and girls, and bathrooms in between. Just outside the dorm was a pavilion with long, heavy picnic tables and on the opposite side of the pavilion, a kitchen with a long, open window/counter where we lined up for meals. The only real complaints regarded unwanted wildlife: there were crabs EVERYWHERE--in the shower, in our suitcases, hiding in our folded clothing--plus a bat hiding in the rafters. The food was similar to what we've been eating, if a little heartier and less refined: rice and beans, stewed meat, steak, barbecued chicken, salad, casseroles, fruit, etc. Breakfast was the only thing lacking--Wonder Bread with ham and cheese--but guess what? I chowed down anyhow. (I'm thinking I should stop bragging about what an adventurous eater I am, considering how obnoxious I found this. Thanks, Ash!)

But all of these details are secondary to: THE BEACH. Our little camp was a three minute walk to one of the most gorgeous, deserted stretches of sand I've seen. Firm brown sand backed by lush, green vegetation, dark blue water spiked with big rocks and tiny islands far offshore, a perfect, warm, fairly gentle surf. As I've mentioned before, I was worried about missing summer. Yet again, winter in Brazil is a decidedly different beast from winter in the Northeast U.S./Southeast Canada and so I got my fill of sun and sand in a place that felt like Nova Scotia's slightly tropical cousin.

One of the highlights of the trip was a visit to Paraty, a charming little colonial seaside town characterized by cobblestone streets and quaint, low, whitewashed buildings with brightly painted accents. I splurged and bought myself a fedora and a schnazzy pair of Converse (new design! Moreover, I had nothing to wear for city-walking, which I'll be doing a lot of in the three weeks after this program ends). We wandered through shops and art galleries and then had dinner and drinks, which inspired us to, upon returning to camp, skinny dip in the dark. It was cloudy, so we couldn't see the stars, but there was enough light to move around safely and it was incredibly beautiful and exhilarating nonetheless--the foggy clouds added an air of mystery. Later, Darcy and Olivia stood with their ears to the boys bathroom and listened to them talk about which girls they'd caught "glimpses" of. Endearing.

The other highlight was a hike we took on the last day. It began (early) at the beach we were closest to and took us up and down small seaside mountains to two others. Difficulty level was ideal--invigorating but not impossible--and the trails and beaches were all unbelievable. By the time we got to the middle beach it had started to rain, but it was a warm rain and we were so hot and sweaty that most of us stripped down to our bathing suits and dove into the water anyway. Felt spectacular. Few things make me happier than swimming in the ocean, and I didn't even mind that I had to pull my wet jeans over my wet bathing suit and finish the hike with grains of sand covering every inch of my skin.

Picinguaba, of course, afforded us a good many learning opportunities as well. We focussed on toposequence, and examined the differences between three different environments of the reserve: lower montane, restinga, and mangrove. One of the coolest things we did for class was visit an old-fashioned, water-powered mill in the lower montane area. Some of the few native people who still live on the reserve use the mill to grind manioc, or cassava, into a flour that is a culinary staple in Northeastern Brazil--I've seen it at almost every meal, often mixed with chunks of banana or ham or green onion, as a topping for rice and beans and/or meat.

On our last night, after a delicious barbecue, a local elderly man named Seu (Sir) Genesio came to talk to us about how the area had changed over his lifetime. He was a rambler, but he had some very interesting things to say--about living off the land and sea, about the danger of roads (they changed everything, in a bad way), about the supernatural (he's a god-fearing man, to say the least), about an escaped slave woman who lived in a cave for years, surviving on animals she caught in a large trap dug into the ground and covered with leaves.

I couldn't stop staring at his hands, which were worn smooth and completely misshapen--several the highest joints of his fingers were splayed unnaturally and it looked as if you could fit a basketball between his thumb and index finger. He told a striking story to explain it: as a young man he had been fishing on a cluster of rocks in a cove. Suddenly, an enormous wave knocked him off and he ended up thrashing in the water, fighting for survival by grasping for rocks as he was violently ripped away from and slapped into them, for over 12 hours. He survived but has borne the scars for the past 60 years. The diversity and resilience of human life never fails to amaze me. I didn't get a picture of him, sadly.

We also studied two endangered species. First, the Palmito tree, an endangered species from which delicious hearts of palm are harvested--unfortunately, once the delicacy is extracted, the tree necessarily dies, and the growth of a replacement seedling can take years. We did an exercise to determine the viability of the Palmito population in Nucleo Picinguaba and learned about how to improve it and what measures are currently being taken to do so. Then, on our way back to IPE, we stopped again in Ubatuba, for another lunch but also to visit Projeto TAMAR, a Brazilian non-profit whose mission is to protect sea turtles from extinction along the Brazilian coast. We went to one of their education centers, where we ogled sea turtles in small pools as they swam around anxiously awaiting lunch, and learned about the dangers they face (fishing nets & hooks, high-powered motor boats with fast, sharp propellers, plastic, global warming, etc.). I bought a pair of turtle earrings from the gift shop because I'm a nerd and a sucker and the money went to a good cause. Turtles, like birds, are really cool. They've been tracking an enormous Leatherback (two meters long!) along its journey all the way to the western coast Africa, where it went to feed, and back.

Now we're back in Nazare Paulista, grudgingly getting back to work on our projects. Tonight, to a club in Sao Paulo that offers four "ambients," as Gabriel described it, one of which features "black music." Should be fuu-uun. Tomorrow, FIELD WORK! Right now, a nap, and maybe a few chapters of Lolita, which is one of the best books I have ever read but also entirely exhausting, because every sentence is worth savoring three or four times. How did Nabokov do that?

P.S. See my photo page for many more pictures.

The Cows

As we've settled into a routine here after two weeks, the days have started to blend together--so rather than write blow-by-blows of each day I'll just describe the highlights, beginning with: The Cows. Yesterday, I had to cross a pasture to get to a patch of forest I wanted to use for my individual project. As I entered the pasture, the eight or so cows grazing in it did not pay me any mind (no mind to pay, really). My departure from the pasture, however, was a different story. It started with one she-cow. First, she mooed, low and foreboding, at me. Then she started trotting towards me menacingly. I got a little nervous and picked up my pace towards the barbed wire fence. When I looked over my shoulder to check out her progress, I was disturbed to see that she was not the only one hot on my heels: EVERY single other cow in the pasture was trotting, slowly but steadily, in my direction, mooing like they were on a mission--a death mission.

Think this is a laughing matter? Read THIS. Watch THIS. Luckily I hightailed it to the fence before tragedy struck and scrambled through the barbed wire unscathed but so frazzled that I proceeded to eat the Chocolate Brownie Clif bar I had with me in about one bite. Sometimes I eat my feelings; no big deal. Anyway, I made it safely back to the Institute, where I told my tale to the field assistants and TAs, using broken Spanish and hand gestures for the ones who don't speak English. They found the whole ordeal hilarious and suggested that my bright reddish-orange shirt had set them off. I think they were just crazy. I went to a different pasture today, wearing a different but similar red shirt, and the cows in this one barely looked up as I passed.

Trekking through undeveloped forest is hard work, and can be very frustrating, but as I was telling Dad the other day, every time I've felt like I wanted to scream (VINES, VINES, EVERYWHERE), I've noticed something amazing and gotten distracted from my rage. Oftentimes it's an exotic-looking butterfly or intricate spider web, but yesterday I had a special treat. As I was measuring soil moisture 50 meters into the forest, I heard some weird squawking above me. I looked up and saw what I was sure were some kind of monkeys--I could see dark blurs jumping from branch to branch and their calls didn't sound too different from those of the marmosets we saw the first week. But after standing still for a few minutes, I got a better look, and realized they were birds! Birds unlike any I've ever seen--they were dark, with long, stiff, subtly-patterned tails, and dark, brown, shiny bodies--and, as I said, they were jumping rather than flying. When I got back to IPE, I told Juliana, one our TAs, about them, and she helped me identify them as Squirrel Cuckoos. Their name in Portuguese translates literally to "Cat Souls"--not quite sure what that's about. I did not take this picture. The birds did not attack me.

Another diffuser of forest-frustration is the reservoir. The past couple days, I've returned from the field a sweaty mess--despite the temperature being above 80 (different definition of winter, here in the tropics), I wear a[n Achievement First] hat and long pants and sleeves to protect from bugs and thorny plants. Luckily, we have easy access to a delightful body of water. I took my first dip the day before yesterday and it was exactly what I needed: cool, crisp, and refreshing, plus surrounded on all sides by gorgeous green hillside and lush forest. There are a few kayaks on the premises, as I think I've mentioned, so I'm hoping I'll find some time to boat around as well.

Our second social was very similar to the first--but with wigs. I wasn't feeling too social (the 20 of us are together almost 24 hours a day) so I ate some peanuts, drank some beer, took some pictures of the band wearing the wigs, and went back to my room to read and talk to Olivia. I've been feeling a little claustrophobic lately--very little privacy here and I'm so used to spending long stretches of time on my own--so I opted to be antisocial again last night; when everyone went to a night club in Atibaia (the same small city where we saw the band last weekend), I stayed behind to watch a movie. Ended up with Gone With the Wind, which I'm pretty sure I haven't seen since I was 12 and which I have been wanting to re-view for awhile.

One of my favorite things to do is re-watch movies or re-read books that I first read years ago. It's always so interesting to see how my perspective has changed, to realize that the first time dozens of euphemisms, allusions, and other manner of subtlety flew right over my head. I made it through the whole four hours--what a sobfest. Seriously, how many people can die (or near-die) in one movie? But boy were Vivian Leigh and Clark Gable a pair of lookers, with such great chemistry and even better get-ups. Moreover, I am such a sucker for love stories that center around misunderstanding (of each other, of self) and miscommunication, even though I am deeply disappointed if things completely flounder in the end--Gone With the Wind's conclusion is ambivalent, lucky for me. I wonder if my weakness for this literary device wasn't born when I first saw Gone With the Wind, but it was just as likely inspired by something I read, I imagine.

Today we spent the afternoon in Atibaia--kind of a dud of a town, if you ask me, but then, people say that about New Haven and I argue that they just don't understand it. We took a chairlift over a sharply sloping park with a bunch of pools, and then back up--thrilling. Then we got ice cream, which was fantastic, the highlight of the day. It was self-serve, weigh-your-own, which seems to be common here: I had a waffle bowl with small scoops of dulce de leche, vanilla with caramel swirl, and caramelized banana, drizzled with that type of chocolate syrup that hardens into a shell. Then, "social coordinator" Gabriel took us to get burgers, which everyone was really excited about, to take to a hang-gliding field where we could eat while watching the gliders coast in and the sun set. Unfortunately, the burgers took so long to prepare that the sun set while we were waiting. Even more unfortunate was that my cheeseburger was maybe the worst I've ever had--hockey puck topped with Velveeta. There was a fresh coconut stand across the street from us and I spent most of the meal gazing at it longingly.

Tomorrow, to the beach at Picinguaba for a week! I'm very excited to see another part of Brazil, especially a coastal part, and Picinguaba is supposed to be spectacular and moreover not a tourist-trap--in fact, it's where Brazilians themselves vacation. It will be nice to have class, which is getting a bit monotonous, in a different environment. The major (but perhaps only) downside is our accommodations: we're sharing a total of two rooms, one for girls and one for boys. Here's hoping nobody snaps! Privacy is so underrated--where am I supposed to go when I need a good cry? We will not have internet at Picinguaba, so I'll be offline and unable to blog or Skype for the next five days. Maybe going cold turkey will help me break my addiction.

I've heard increasing complaints about the food here lately--people are finding it repetitive, but I'm happy to report that I'm still very happy with it. Nightly casseroles never killed anybody and they're clearly an easy thing to prepare for a large group of people. Speaking of food, I made it to the Cafes and Restaurants section of my Rough Guide to Buenos Aires (a gift from everyone's favorite travel agent, B. Ashby Hardesty :)) and got myself even more excited about living there. Steak, wine, dulce de leche, ice cream, empanadas, pizza--the Italian food is supposed to be incredible and even Dan Shapiro, who I either eat with or run into every time I go to Modern, says Buenos Aires pizza is the best he's ever had. And all for a third of what it costs in the U.S. (or New York, at least). I even read about a high-profile cafe that serves local game, including capybara--GROSS, but I obviously have to try it.

I am trying to train myself to drink coffee--which I love but which does scary things to my circulatory system--by drinking small amounts with a lot of milk, because I think it's a pretty big part of B.A.'s culinary culture (part of most places' culinary culture, really). It doesn't hurt that the coffee here is delicious. I've also been drinking a lot of something labeled "Matte Tea" (served from a coffee pump). I am not sure if it's the same mate that everyone drinks in Argentina, but I'm hoping that it is because I like it and because it doesn't seem to have the same nasty effect as coffee.

Who wants to come eat with me? Kayak.com for cheap tickets. Talk to you in five days!

The Power of Now

To begin, a word (I'm really into words) on the nature of recording personal commentary within a public domain such as Al Gore's interweb (a.k.a. a series of tubes). In starting this blog, my intended audience were my close friends and family. Naively, I didn't stop to think that there was no way to limit said audience short of password-protection, which never even crossed my mind. What I'm trying to get at is this: in my last blog post, I referenced a longstanding, exaggerated joke (who, me?) without realizing I was making it at the expense of specific people whom I never thought would read my blog. I have removed the insulting passage and I regret any offense taken--it was thoughtless and unkind and I really didn't mean anything by it My worst self seems to come out when I'm in a summer camp-like environment, so forgive me if I revert to 12-year-old behavior.

Now, on to more important things! The last few days have been very quiet: a lot of lectures, field exercises, reading (I found a recent issue of The New Yorker on Josie's floor, so I've put Lolita aside for a bit), so-bad-they're-great movies (fan favorites include Pretty Woman and the timeless Now and Then--guess who's Chrissy?), strolls around the neighborhood, sunsets, and steadily fantastic meals (though I've just about sworn off dessert because I can't handle the sugar).

I decided to change the focus of my individual project, because I looked deep within myself and determined that I do not have the patience (or particular interest) to collect and sort so many insect specimens. I am now going to compare several abiotic (that is, non-living) factors at three, instead of two, different types of forest edges: forest-pasture edge, forest-reservoir edge, and forest-road edge. I will look at whether the soil moisture, humidity, temperature, and amount of light differ across these slightly different, man-made landscapes.

This afternoon was my first official day of project field work and it was a lot less fun than I thought it would be. Tromping through raw forest is...difficult. There are vines and spider webs EVERYWHERE and I forgot my machete (just kidding)! Plus, it's been raining for a few days so I kept stepping in gross piles of mud and slippery leaves. That said, I'm slowly getting the hang of it and tomorrow I'm going out with a field assistant, so it should be a bit easier.

The most exciting--and tragic--event to occur since I last posted was the death of Leopoldinha (so dubbed by Olivia), a Glittering-bellied Emerald (we think) hummingbird who flew into our dining room and then exhausted herself into shock. We know she was a female because of her size and coloring--very small, and while gorgeously iridescent, much less colorful than a male would have been. When she finally fell, Ze brought her outside and a few of us gathered around, monitoring her breathing and watching hopefully to see if she would recover. Things were looking good for awhile. Tim held and stroked her to warm her little body, and dripped a little water onto her beak and she appeared to be rallying, but late that night, she croaked (I was about to type "passed away" but then got nervous I was losing my cynicism after only 10 days away from the tristate area!). We buried her in a flowerbed. Heartbreaking, yes, but it was really, really cool to see her up close and touch her. I tried to post a video I took but it was taking forever to load, so here're some pictures instead.

I am at the point where my distance from home--both geographically and temporally--is starting to really sink in. This isn't a negative realization, but it is a little disconcerting. For the past few days, I have had the feeling that my life is going on without me. Not true, of course, because my life conveniently follows me around and right now I'm very clearly in Brazil, but also disconcerting. I'm hoping this will fade with time, and though I love blogging and keeping in touch with friends and family via G-mail (my virtual home) and Skype, I think that spending a little--just a little--less time on the internet will help. It's great to be connected, but the more connected I am to another, sort of plane of existence, the less I am connected to my current reality, and who doesn't want to live in the moment?

Enough with the philosophizing. Today is Thursday, which means...another social! Spirits are high again, and Darcy has taken it upon herself to instate a "formal" dress code for tonight's festivities, whatever they may be. This is mostly because laundry day was Monday and most of us are completely out of clothes save our dressiest garments, the only ones we don't wear in the field. One of us even brought wigs with her! As my buddy Ethan put it, "Does everyone have tickets for the shit show?" Weee'll see-ee....

P.S. How 'bout that presidential race? Just read this great article, published in (on?) Slate, everyone's favorite online magazine, by Meghan O'Rourke, a[n excellent] staff writer who happens to also be one of the poetry editors of The Paris Review (but doesn't work in the office; I never met her). Interesting that the picture at right is the first one to come up on a Google image search, nao?

P.P.S. I tried mangosteen! It was bizarre but pretty delicious--a hard, dark shell enclosing soft, white, juicy, vaguely citrus-like flesh that comes in cloves a la garlic. The only taste comparison I could draw was...lemon sorbet? Except not cold. I bought two but unfortunately didn't cut open the second one fast enough; it went bad and grew some kind of weird, yellow mold inside. I'll save it for you, Dad, so you can scrape it off and eat it anyway.

Baby, It's Cold Outside

Sorry for the hiatus--I've been caught up in the first weekend's social affairs, of which there were many. I will get to that in a minute, but first: a weather update. Apparently it does rain in the rain forest, hard and abundantly. It's been raining since Friday and that wouldn't be at all bothersome--I've always like a good hard rain once in awhile--except for the fact that rain means no sun and no sun means it's COLD. Really cold. Thank god, once again (it came in handy in frigid San Francisco last summer), for the stylish Eddie Bauer vest that Uncle Eugene scavenged while thrift shopping--environmentally conscious to boot!

I finally understand why they call this season winter. Unfortunately, I don't have too much other clothing with me, a fact that I was immensely proud of when I left--I only brought one, relatively small bag--but that now plagues me. The Institute staff does our laundry for us but there is a five day turnaround, which means that there may be several days in which I am wearing nothing but that lovely down vest, my phenomenal hiking boots, which were so comfortable from the get-go that I didn't even have to break them in, and my single pair of Smartwool socks.

Luckily, the rhythms of Brazil kept us warm (bada ching!) all weekend long, beginning on Thursday night. This was the date of the aforementioned "samba social." Turns out the "samba band" was made up primarily of Institute staff, including Professor Tim, who shakes a mean maraca. Ze Carlos, who is a local resident/grad student/field assistant, double-timed it on the tambourine and at the bar, mixing up some potent caipirinhas, which are the Brazilian national drink and helped significantly in dancing the night away. A little samba, a little salsa, a little forro--good times had by all. Perhaps the best time was had by a girl named Amanda, who was the lucky dance partner of a local guy (pictured above) whose connection to the Institute is unclear. At one point he asked her to come home with him via the line, "Mi casa, vroom, vroom?" and some very illustrative motorcycle-implying gestures. Then he licked her face. She declined his invitation, politely.

After rising later than usual--some us had quite a few caipirinhas to sleep off--we devoted the following two days to working on our individual projects (plus eating, of course). Mine, in sum: a comparison of insect biodiversity in two different types of forest-edges--forest-reservoir edge and forest-pasture edge. I am basically trying to discern if there is a difference between the effects of two different kinds of deforestation on insect biodiversity in this area. To determine this, I have to collect a LOT of insect specimens. This involves: whacking trees with a stick. Whatever bugs were on the tree fall onto what's called a beating sheet, which is a piece of fabric held taut by a plastic frame, which I will be holding at about waist-height beneath the branches.

Here comes the fun part: acting fast, I will use a special insect-aspirator to suck the creepy crawlies into a vial, being careful to separate predators and prey--I learned this the hard way during my trial run when an innocent looking spider gobbled up about half the other specimens. Back at the lab, I will freeze the vials (to kill the insects) and then sort and identify my collection. Should be...interesting. I'm not exactly sure how I ended up with this project but hopefully it will go as swimmingly as the rest of the trip has so far.

By the time Saturday night rolled around we were all good and ready for some more socializing, and Gabriel, our "social coordinator," (I'm going to continue to type that in quotes because it's such a ridiculous title) did not disappoint with his second itinerary. After a detailed Introduction to Portuguese lesson including what to say to "cheeky" men (see picture), we hopped into some super-cool 15-person vans and headed to Atibaia, a small city about 45 minutes away from Nazare Paulista, home of the Insitute. Our destination was an artsy, semi-outdoor bar/club called "Busca Vida," (which in both Spanish and Portuguese means "Search for Life"), where a band called what else but "Mahnimal" was scheduled to play.

Our group stood out like a sore thumb in tank tops and flip-flops--apparently everyone else in Brazil got the memo that it's winter and had on boots and jackets--but this fact did not deter us from downing caipirinhas (fruit added this time--I ordered mango) with the best of them and dancing as enthusiastically as we had the night before. We also snacked on some pizza, which tastes wildly different from pizza in the US (to my seasoned pizza-palate, at least). Though baked in a brick-oven (visible from the dance floor), it was much thinner than even New Haven-style, almost as flaky as phyllo and topped with chopped tomatoes that had a kind of tangy flavor and a cheese that I'm pretty sure wasn't mozzarella. It was good nonetheless and later we tried a dessert pizza with a sweeter cheese and guava spread--also tasty. I had a mug of mulled wine as well, which was nice and warm but insanely sweet. It seems that Brazilians have a serious sweet tooth--everything falling under the dessert category tastes like it was made with pounds of sugar.

Mahnimal took the stage stylishly late at 1 AM and put on a pretty good show--their music is a mix of rock, samba, reggae, etc. and they seem to have a big following, so the crowd was lively. We got home at 5 AM and for SOME people this was too much--dozens (OK, one dozen) dropped out of our plan to head to Sao Paulo later that morning. I was not one of them and happily hopped into the van again. Sao Paulo was GREAT. I'd been skeptical of vehement warnings about how treacherous it is, so I was pleased to see for myself that it is just like any other city--a mixed bag with good and bad neighborhoods, but certainly not a place to be fearfully avoided. I am tentatively planning to meet Tamar there for the first days of July.

We started off at a big indoor market--markets being second only to Chinese bakeries on my list of preferred eating establishments. Speaking of Chinese bakeries, the first stand I stopped at was a Chinese one, where I snagged some subpar prepackaged red bean cakes. Luckily this did not start a trend; everything I ate thereafter was delicious. My snacks included: a few bites from Olivia's bowl of melted chocolate with strawberries and bananas, a sample chunk of a delicious but unidentified green-skinned, white-fleshed fruit (wish I brought my favorite book/gift from Kathy McKenna, Ingredients, with me), half of a pastel de bacalhau, which is a basically a deep-fried-until-it-blisters pocket of dough filled with salted cod, parsley, and green olives.
We walked around as we ate and I couldn't resist taking close-up photos of all the fruits I had never seen before--see "More Photos" for the rest. I bought a couple mangosteens, which I've wanted to try ever since I saw this video on The New York Times website during one of my procrastination rampages. Haven't cut them open yet but I'll be sure to report back as soon as I do--they better be good because they were ex-pen-sive.

Destination Two was Parque Villa Lobos for an outdoor concert--Brazilians might not wear flip-flops during the winter but they do have concerts outside--featuring Herbie Hancock and Macy Gray. The sky was one of the grayest (ha) I have ever seen and the rain was steadily intermittent (is that an oxymoron?) but they passed out free hats and ponchos and Herbie rocked it out (funked it up?) on his electric piano and put on a great show nonetheless. Macy Gray was a slightly different story...she has an interesting singing voice (though when she's talking she sounds like a baby on crack) but really only ever produced one hit, so other than it ("I Try," which I was a HUGE fan of in 1998) she sang mostly covers, including a few songs from Joni Mitchell's Blue and an obscure Radiohead song called "Creep."

After the concert, we decided to grab dinner in Sao Paulo. Unfortunately, restaurant-finding is not "social coordinator" Gabriel's strong point and his suggestions were: a Churrascaria (Brazilian steakhouse) that would set us back each about 30USD, a Japanese restaurant with similar prices, or a mall food court. Nobody wanted to spend $30 on one meal so we settled on the food court. This would have been a stab in my little heart but for the fact that the mall also housed a pharmacy, for which I'd been dying, and a store called Hanny, pictured. Plus, it turns out that mall food courts in Brazil are slightly different than those in America and I had a boring but healthy and affordable meal from the salad bar of a chain churrascaria. After an uneventful drive home, I went to bed far too late and am now sitting in class (shhh), exhausted but satisfied.

A word on social interactions: I have settled into a nice little clique (a la Mean Girls, I'm Regina George) and have decided that cardio exercise is unnecessary in light of all the laughing I am doing every day. Perhaps the funniest crayon in the box is Darcy Kaplan, of West Hartford/Farmington, CT (her dad referred to me as a "fellow nutmegger"), pictured at right in a precarious position during our pasture exercise. Her Brazil blog--"Brazil Happened"--is linked on the left column of this page. She is followed closely on my Top Hits list by Josie Duffy and my dear roommate Olivia Frazao. Here is a picture of them if you want to check out their pretty faces (well, profiles).

Just finished a looooong day of class, which ended with a ridiculous conversation about global destruction in which people pretended like they knew what they were talking about ad nauseum. All I want to do is lie in bed and read Lolita, which I just started, but those six credits are calling to me like sirens and so I'm off to read about Atlantic Forest biodiversity hotspots instead.... Tchau!