a la brasileira

Dear Friends:

Had trouble posting photos yesterday; problem seems to have worked itself out today. It´s a lovely Tuesday, sunny if a bit cool.

My Brazilian novela ended with a bang and it looks as if the new one is going to be great. Last night was the inaugural episode: A young mother (married at 13) and her five (5!) children make the trip to Rio (by bus, during a hail storm) from the country and only home they´ve known to look for the children´s father -- they arrive during the first days of dictatorship alone and lost - we see images of the newspapers being taken over, people dying in the streets, imprisoned, chaos, and the youngest child, a baby girl, is stolen. For those of you who don´t know, there is nothing, nothing like a Brazilian novela. They are superb, epic, and human and just about everyone gets exactly what they deserve. Not at all like the typical south/north american variety, and definitely worth the watching.

On other fronts, I have to say that fieldwork is an eye-opening experience. You find people who do their job well and those who aren´t worth the pressed wood they sit on. After calling both the DC and NY offices of a particular organization, I managed to track down the voicemail of the individual I´ve been trying to contact. Finally got an email response (only after I specified on the voicemail that the DC office said to contact her) that inspired absolutely no confidence and literally oozed apathy. Wow. Apathy does make me angry, especially in someone working for a human rights org. Wish life were a Brazilian novela.

B.