BH is for lovers

Every night for several weeks now, I pass by this couple who meet each other under a tree in front of one of the shuttered shops by my building. I know they must come here after work because they're always wearing the same uniforms.

They stand there for literally hours giggling, occasionally making out, talking in low voices or just

sitting close

huddled on the steps.

It moves me to see two people so obviously, so relentlessly in love...

They're young and apparently lower on the socioeconomic chain, so their relationship is structurally disposed to a high likelihood of failure. Marriage is rare among Brazil's marginalized poor, the ability to form a stable family unit seriously complicated by a host of social challenges and insecurities. My research harangues me about all the barriers to resources, the power differentials, the unrelenting poverty that looms over their lives.

But when I pass them, I can't help my smile... and wish them all the best. Seriously, who knows what that bond they are forging can enable them to accomplish...?

Colação de Grau

This December I will graduate from Texas A&M University. I have been to several Aggie graduations, so I know what to expect for my own: endless boredom. My last name is at the beginning of the alphabet, so I do plan to leave after walking the stage. Rude? Sorry.

Envisioning mind-numbing boredom when my friend invited me the commencement ceremony for a college, it was curiosity alone that forced me to agree.

HOLY CRAP. Where do I begin?

Really, I shouldn't have been surprised by THE THREE HOURS OF OVER STIMULATION that followed.

Brazilians are frequently up front about how much they love their families. "I love you so much. I'm always thinking about you." "You really are one of my best friends. I admire you so much and I miss you whenever you're away." These are things from various friends' Orkut (=lame Facebook) pages. FROM THEIR SIBLINGS!

While I have come across instances of chronic sibling conflict here, generally I'm gratified (and convicted) by these people's obvious affection for each other. Don't even get me started on the parents.

Secondly, Brazilians also tend to be... er... "ebullient", I believe is the appropriate word. At concerts, clubs, parties, church, etc. they compete with each other for being the happiest, dancingest and loudest in attendance. Don't even get me started on Carnival.

Imagine now that someone you love, admire and support with your very lifeblood is graduating from an institution of higher learning.

A small group of family members was about five. Even the nuns turned out for a graduating sister. Most had enough parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. attending that it was possible for one family member each to frantically wave an enormous, bedazzled poster with a single letter... and spell out a name like L-E-O-N-A-R-D-O with still another two rows to throw balloons, pop confetti, and lay on an airhorn like an Italian cab driver stuck in traffic.

I will not deny it. I wouldn't mind one day seeing a large group of screaming people (wearing matching t-shirts with my face splayed under "WE LOVE YOU, DAVID!! YOU'RE THE GREATEST!!!", some with their hair dyed multicolored) mobbing some stage I was standing on. Seems like it would be kind of gratifying.

It was never really quiet even during the most serious speech (and there were many, I assure you). Pretty much the only time things settled down even a little was when the diplomas were passed out - only one group was screaming their heads off at a time, the rest just kind of excitedly tittering in anticipation. I kid you not, though I knew no one there, I nearly cried once from the outpouring of honest... joy.

The time flew by for which I am thankful. I had a pounding headache between the whistles, airhorns and enough camera flashes to simulate daylight indoors.

Parabéns, graduates.

The Travesti Who Could

In the previous post, I noted the grim reality that most travestis end up working in prostitution. However, Ricardo told me about a case in the Northeastern state of Ceará about a travesti who managed to graduate from college and even pass the rigorous public exam to work in the school system as a teacher. I looked up the story written by Kalima Fernandes in the January 4th, 2009 ed. of the Folha de São Paulo.

It was so inspiring, I thought I'd share the main points with you. João Filho, or Luma as she prefers to be called, is the first travesti to enter into a doctorate program in Brazil. She also works in the school system managing 28 schools in 13 districts of the state.

Luma is the child of illiterate poor parents. She chose to study to support her family instead of entering into prostitution. In the school system, she was the constant victim of ridicule and physical violence. She tells the story of once running to a teacher for help after being assaulted by a classmate only to be told, "Good job, and who was it who forced you to be this way?" She remembers that the persecution would only diminish around exams when her classmates would ask her for help with math.

Upon graduating, despite her exemplary performance and grades, she was singled out to be monitored for a over a month by the school director. Another attempted to block her assignment all together. In the classroom, she often would face ridicule from her own students.

Now, as she continues her doctorate research, there is no questioning that she is highly qualified. Apart from her professional performance, her own truly heroic struggle against intense discrimination and ridicule to obtain an education and a respectable job is a testimony to her strength of character. Hopefully, her courage will open the doors for other young travestis in education and provide new opportunities away from a life on the streets.

Why face all this grief? Why come out of the closet?

Integrity.

Do what they will, no one can rob you of your freedom and dignity if you are true to yourself.

You go, girl.

The proudest gay...

Friday evening I squatted 350 lbs. for three sets of ten. I practically ran home, ecstatic at having pretty much shattered a long term goal of mine. Saturday, however, my legs began to ache a little...

On Sunday morning, following much preening and fluttering, we trouped down to the Praça da Estação. The city was still waking up, but as we approached, we could already hear the rumor of a crowd and music.

At one end of the square: an enormous stage covered in sound equipment and drag queens. Under an increasingly hot winter sun, we met people and drank, circulating occasionally in search of shade. I didn't pay much attention to the lip synced drag shows or the speeches by public figures eager to assert their support for human rights.

I was too busy watching the crowd. Besides, campy entertainment and political mobilization were obviously not the point.

People were there to hook up S. E. X...

Even the festive atmosphere was a facade. Music blaring, confetti spraying, people dancing and kissing... basically a gay bar that's spilled into the streets. You get used to people not really paying attention as you talk to them. Everyone is looking for two things: a pretty face (or a passable one) and a willing disposition.

Seeing as I already had a date, I plodded along with one hand tightly gripping Ricardo's, the other shoved firmly into my pocket with my camera and money. Still, someone managed to get his phone number into my pocket without my realizing it - honestly I'm just impressed more than anything.

Poor Ricardo... one of the most intelligent, respectable guys I've ever met (he's a lawyer for an NGO, representing disadvantaged workers for crying out loud) he was the one who got an egg in the shoulder. Just as the parade was beginning, a punk kid started dancing up on him. When he pushed the partier away, I saw his cell phone had been nudged half way out of his pocket.

All along the trajectory, the people leaned out their windows watching the giddy crowd below. Along the street, people broke rank to urinate in a corner or to make out. I really didn't see many of the infamous exhibitionists, the traditional staple of gay pride parades. The two I saw in their underwear, one with angel wings and his little tush hanging out, were so young I'm not sure I can even call them men.

I would compare these two to the teenager who gets a bellybutton ring without asking her mom. Bucking society by flaunting norms... but in the process flaunting good judgment (and taste) as well.

Sadly, my friends, after my first gay pride parade, I must join the naysayers. A gay pride parade has little to do with empowerment. Pride might begin with a public demonstration like this. But an adult, hopefully, takes his or her independent identity for granted... Asserting oneself, making one's own life choices... and respecting other people's autonomy are some of the sweetest rewards of adulthood.

The goal is to move society in this direction. I'm not sure filling the streets with piss and loud music is the best way...

The real work of change happens in the courts. Not tolerating discrimination at work, in public life. Taking the trouble. Protesting. Integrity in your public, professional life. Writing. Speaking. Voting. You really don't need a crowd to help you with that...

In daily life, it's the courage to refer to my "boyfriend" instead of my "friend." Taking his hand on the bus - not to shock, but because I care for him and I expect others to respect that.
After walking for eight hours, though, I was holding my boyfriend's hand mainly because my legs were about to give way with every step. My little weightlifting feat a few days ago had come back to haunt me.

I think that's what it's all about. Someone willing to brave the snickers of ignorant people to hold you up when you're about to fall on your ass.

Cruzeiro crazies

I am staying in Barro Preto currently, which also is the home of the Cruzeiro Athletic Club, one of the main football teams in Belo Horizonte.

Last night around sundown, firecrackers began popping and horns blaring as streets started to fill with cars and trucks overflowing with shouting fans. The Cruzeiro blue was everywhere as the streetlamps flickered on. After dinner, you could easily hear the commotion from 18 stories down and two blocks away. Out the window, you could see tents and blankets streaching around the Cruzeiro athletic complex. O Tempo, the local paper, said over 5,000 turned out to spend the night on the street to buy tickets as soon as they went on sale.

Late this morning, helicopters began circling and the noise really became compelling. Curious at the change in tone, I walked around the block to R. Timbiras where the Cruzeiro administration building is located. Suddendly, hoards [there really is no better word for it] of young men came running, surging and shouting around the corner. As they pressed forward, trashcans went flying, signs came down and the storekeepers who had been watching out their front doors scurried to close the metal storefront shutters. A very restive sea of dark blue tossed in front of the Cruzeiro building. Shouts arouse from the crowd and the street rapidly emptied of shoppers who moved on or posted themselves at the street corners to observe, their hands cluching their bags or shading their eyes. A reporter slowly eased himself out of car and tentatively moved his camera onto his shoulder.

Suddenly, the crowd broke and adolescents scattered back in a wave. The cops had finally arrived. They formed a line in front of the building and tried to move traffic down the street. Overhead, a helicopter circled in tight passes. Soon, the mob regained confidence and the blue waves surged back in rivulets between the halted cars filled with very nervous passengers.

I gathered from the angry outburts hurled from the crowd that the police had cut off the sale of tickets and not all the campers had been able to get in. Feeling themselves cheated after so much effort, they apparently thought the administration deserved to learn of their displeasure first hand. Indeed, men in suits on the patio of the building stared down at stormy crowd with deathly seriousness.

I darted home to retrive my camera when I noticed serveral very well-built shirtless young men ascending the streets in knots. One picked up several shards of concrete from the sidewalk and dove back in the crowd...

By the time I got back, however, there where police on every street corner in the neighborhood. The rabble had been disbanded and an orderly line streached up the street. One particularly massive cop with a motorcycle helmet was coordinating the dealings with the crowd. Order was restored tentatively... boy, wouldn't it just be poetic if Cruzeiro lost after so much bruhaha? hehehehe...

City of lights

Preparing to leave, I realized Americans have two ideas about Brazil. First, that violent crime is continuously threatening to end your life and rob you of all possessions leaving you naked and bleeding in some dark alley. The other is that Brazilians are stunningly gorgeous with a smoldering sense of sexuality. Langurous eyes shaded by palm fronds beckoning... I started to get a little nonplused by the constant insinuations that I would soon be engaging in almost constant orgies with the gods.
*wink


Oooookay then... Welcome to Rio!

Soon after depositing my things at some friends' apartment, we set off together to walk down the beach front. Copacabana, Arpoador, Ipanema, Leblon... Rio's mountains draped in surf, a fresh, high sun overhead: Sunday afternoon, the city was out strolling. People trotted next to us on a marathon. Neighbors chatted in bars down the beachfront. Kids on tired old powerwheels and bikes with training wheels cruised through a moving forest of legs. Since it's winter, there were but a few surfers, a few beggers both brozed by innumerable beach afternoons - each in their own way, diehards...

We wound through the cool, tall streets of the Zona Sul. The black and white mosaic sidewalks tinted green under our feet from the light filtered through arcades of trees. Men unloading furniture. The fat taxi driver dozing shirtless in his cab. The bustle of an open-air craft market. Shoppings, stores, restaurants, bars, supermarkets.

Glancing through the hundreds of faces, I thought, to be honest, few Brazilians fit American's ideas of beauty. Most are too skinny, too fat and/or shall I say it? Too dark. Yes, every once and a while a man with the most perfectly chisled body would saunter down the street, a cocky smile on his well-porportioned face. But you would meet more gymbunnies in Chelsea on a single city block. The fact that I even had this thought told me I was looking for support for Americans' Brazilian beauty myth.

No, as much as it pains me to burst your bubble, Brazilians are pretty much like people anywhere... pretty, ugly, big, skinny, hairy, young, old, scarred, trashy, sophisticated, slight, thick... would you really want it anyother way? After all, if you wandered into a room of half-naked underwear models, most likely you would be too worried about sucking in your gut to get a hard on.

I left Rio on a dingy, snuffed out cigarette of a night. Hurtling towards the bus station in one of those wild, off the track roller coaster cars they call taxis here, I was lost in thought about all that I had seen. We careened down a street and turned a corner -

suddenly, between the buildings the black sky was filled with a galaxy of stars. It was so unexpected, it took a moment to realize they were the distant lights of one of Rio's infamous shantytowns precariously ascending up the invisible mountain face before me. Poverty, ignorance, violence, dead ends all transformed into constellations of lives hanging above the fitfully sleeping city.

Beauty.

What have you done today, eh?

Notice most of my day is spent 1. lying down 2. with few clothes on

Spazzing out

I'm so restless.

Yesterday I walked out of class so that I didn't start screaming, "this is bullshiiiiit!" [imagine me screaming it like a banshee, the voice rising up towards the end to a wale higher than human hearing] I tried to take a nap but stared at the ceiling until I bolted up to the Rec Center to manically do a leg work out involving super sets of squats and squat jumps. Suffice to say, the glass tower of my peaceful, resigned, make-the-best-of-it exterior is showing some cracks these days.

I tried to go out and socialize later, but all I did was eat a ton of pizza and drink disappointing strawberry-flavored beer. It was nice to see people, but my conversation was as sparkling as flat Mr. Pib. I fell into bed only to wake up at 5 am with bad gas and cotton mouth. Screw. That.

Nevertheless, I feel like I have something to say to you guys [something very important], but it's apparently going to take another day of procrastination to distill the message into words.

So this is a teaser.

sleep deprivation:three pots of coffee:major purchases

Here's another: Friday I plan to skip all my classes. It's going to be epic.

More later...

On a lighter note [heaven knows we need these more often what with pirates and all]:
I have been rather bemused lately by the realization [reminder?] that many people with a seemly demure, straight-laced exterior can often gloss over the most confused, multi-faceted sexualities. It's comforting not only for the interest of discovering a unique human experience, but also for the simple assurance that no one corresponds with our culture's almost asexual standards of "purity."

And that's okay...

Anthropological interest aside, I do look forward to living somewhere with a little more integrity, a little less self-loathing and [above all] something more interesting to talk/think about than the asinine gossip of a town whose most memorable event in the past year was the completion of the construction on Texas Avenue.