00 Brasilia 00060: A Last Look Forward--The Importance of the US/Brazil Relationship

A Journal Interlude from November 28, 1999: Hiking the Itiquira

Yesterday, went for a hike along the Itiquira River a few hours outside the city.

A bunch of us -- led by the motor pool dispatcher, who knew the way to the fazenda (farm) at the trail head because he rocks-climbs waterfalls and who came to us recently as a result of downsizing at Xerox Brasil after many years as a supervisor of technicians and is somewhat over qualified for his present position but hopes to move up -- drove off at 8am and had a jolly old time (accompanied as we were by a Brit).  The trail was probably just five or six miles but it was in a narrow valley in the cerrado (bush) along the river.  Going between ridges and walls of rock covered in tropical green, the trail went up and down and crossed the river at several points.  The river was little more than 10-20 feet wide but was running very high and fast due to this being rainy season.  We waded into sometimes waist-high water that fought us all the way.  But we had only 1 ½ dunkings and got to enjoy the challenge.  (The only way to ford on foot a river running quick is to face upstream.)  Descending with the river, we passed by repeated rapids and a 125-foot falls that was majestic but almost totally hidden.  We stopped at one point to swim, though it was not warm on top of the plateau.  After around two hours, we arrived at the top of Itiquira Fall, a 500-foot drop.  Peering over the edge was a bit scary but it was difficult to see to the bottom since the falling water turns to mist about a third of the way down.  We climbed down along the side of the falls, a very steep slope where we had to be careful not to start an avalanche of rocks for the folks below.

On the way home, we stopped at a very modest restaurant and made the staff’s day with our considerable consumption of food and drink.  The sun came out while we were there so the owner sent somebody onto the roof (of tin) to wet it down with a hose to keep the gringos down under cool and comfortable.

99 Brasilia 04380: Security Chief Resigns After Demonstrator Dies At Brasilia Public Works Agency

99 Brasilia 04371: Opposition Worker's Party Congress: Moderates Gain (But Don't Press) the Advantage

November 1999: A Riff on Eating at a Churrascaria

It is a mid-November Saturday afternoon. Given that the sun is directly overhead, it should be rather warm. But with the clouds and rain, the sun hardly gets through and the temperature is cool and the air clean. I offer the following riff on my just completed lunch at Las Pampas. If I wait any longer to put this down, I'll be asleep.

After putting in a few hours in the office, I was feeling a bit hungry. Not so hungry as to be starving, but enough so that with facing many hours to the Marine Ball tonight, I thought I'd try a new churrasco. O churrasco (the barbecue) that I chose was Las Pampas.  (In Spanish since putting it thus might be supposed to have snob appeal. Some heathens still believe that the Argentines do barbecued meat better than the Brazilians. Silly notion because both countries have gauchos (cowboys), lots of cows and the tradition of cutting them up into chunks, roasting the chunks over charcoal fires and then eating great gobs of the resulting carne.  I admit, however, having eaten in Buenos Aires, that Argentine beef may be the best in the world. But I digress.).

The Las Pampas next to the Carrefoure hypermarket in Brasilia, should not, in any case, be expected to be of the highest class, and thus, perhaps, the appeal to Spanish. Indeed, it proved to be very much a place for the povao (pronounced poe- voun -- oun pronounced like in the English word noun and meaning "the common people"). The management noticed right away that I was a person of taste and class (i.e. someone for whom the local currency was no object). All during my subsequent meal they kept asking if I needed anything. With that prompting, I had three very cold beers and lots of meat. A churrasco works this way: you take your plate and go up to the salad bar and fill your plate with all sorts of greens, roasted, raw and pickled vegetables, cold cuts, cheeses and some things -- like quail eggs -- that I wouldn't eat anywhere. (In this case, I bravely plunged into the live greens since the only way to really know a restaurant is to see if you get sick after eating the local greens.) While you are making your way through this portion of the meal, rotating waiters begin bringing to your table various and sundry cuts of beef, pork, chicken, sausage, goat, etc (including -- ugh -- chicken livers). Some people allow the waiter to carve off slices of sizzling flesh at this point. The tourists gobble down the greens in order to feel better about the subsequent feast of cholesterol. (I tried on this occasion to push off the waiters but I tired of giving such offense and accepted a few morsels.) After the salad, you go back to the food bar and load up on the starches that will accompany the meats. These include French fries, fried manioc (yucca), rice, beans and various types of farofa. (Farofa is ground and roasted manioc. One of my favorites.) When you get this back to your table, you order another beer and really start pilling up the meat. Each person gets his/her own pincers to grab the meat as it comes off the spit. It goes onto a small sort of "holding-plate" until you take a piece onto the main plate for actually cutting and eating.

On this particular afternoon, my holding-plate soon became the ground floor for quite a pile. At one point the manager came up to my table with a look of alarm, asking if he could take it away since clearly the meat on the bottom of the pile had been there for a few minutes. This is an important point. The cuts of beef are so loaded with "juices" -- i.e. liquid cholesterol -- that if allowed to cool, they became a bit tough with congealed, well you know. Eaten right off the spit, they are divine.

But none of this was the high point of the meal. That was rather the ambiance, starting with the music. This was provided by a one-man orchestra who also sang. The mainstay of his repertoire were what I remember as my very favorite music to "slow-dance" with girls during my early high school days. He sang in English too. However incongruous this may seem, it seemed to help my appetite. His range went from a deep bass Louie Armstrong -- doing "Moon River" -- to the falsetto of Maurice Gibbs (of the BeeGees). My favorite --though I almost choked to death with uncontrollable laughter -- was a Beatles melody. Needless to say that this tremendous range came as the result of a total lack of skill and shame. But it was fun.

During the lull in the band, I looked for other diversions. There was the guy who left with his wife and looked normal from the waste down but otherwise like some mad builder and added a White House full of extensions to the upper torso. He caused quite a stir in his wake as even the Brazilians -- normally very polite -- guffawed with mirth after he had passed through. Then the three guys next to me, obviously from a local TV crew from the size of the video camera they had with them, paid the check and left. Although they had brought the camera in with them to safe guard it from being stolen from their vehicle, they had had such a good time that they just left it in its chair. The waiter had to chase them to bring this to their attention.

I eventually noticed that there were mirrors placed along the ceiling in such a way that you could see reflected images of the middle of other people's tables, providing a unique view of plates, glasses and the occasional hand with knife and fork. This proved mildly diverting but I decided it was improper to stare at people's dining behavior. Some things should be left private. However, I did notice that most folk's dishes seemed to be missing the big pile of meat that was on mine. Either this cost me my appetite or I had had enough. Lunch soon ended after two coffees and a trip to the dessert bar, where they had a sinful number of gooey, custardy things with coconut in or on them. This is always cause for temptation, but that is another story. 

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99 Brasilia 02947: Opposition Within the Alliance

From Journal Entry for August 8, 1999: Typical "work" for a Chief of Mission

This morning, we all went to the Flag Changing ceremony at the Praca dos Tres Poderes (Square of the Three Powers). Every month there is an official ceremony in which the national flag – the biggest in Brazil – is lowered and a new one takes its place. The flagpole is a soaring sculpture in itself at one end of Brasilia’s version of the monumental mall. The space is flanked by the Congress, the Supreme Court and Planalto (the President’s offices) -- thus Tres Poderes. I was invited to attend with my family*. We all got dressed and were picked up by the Lincoln at 8:30. We had a bit of shade in the VIP area and were surrounded by more four-star officers than we ever saw. The Church was present too (some cardinal). We were treated to a marching band from the Military High School of Brasilia, which had a live sheep for its mascot.

 

Yesterday we had a newly arrived family over for lunch....  asked the staff to do a Brazilian barbecue. The food went great with the caipirinhas, the company, the sun and the pool. [My wife] – a bit reluctant at first to have our domestics asked to work on Saturday (it is part of their work schedule but we don’t usually utilize it) – enjoyed lunch enough to suggest we do it every weekend. On Friday night, we went to the Bolivian National Day reception while Andy went on a sleep over. This evening, Andy and I will have a guest box at the local soccer stadium to see Gama play Guarani. The workweek is pretty full and we are entering a busy period with lots of visitors coming down. But I like what I’m doing and we all are having a good time.

*Note:  My family joined me in Brasilia for a few weeks during the summer break.

From Journal Entries for July 17 & 25 and August 1, 1999

July 17: Just got back from our Saturday passeio, to the Park Shopping mall and to the Embassy, where I worked a little.... The folks next door, who I think just moved in, are still singing karaoke and doing it badly. Started way before noon and it’s coming up on six. I understand music is in the Brazilian soul.

Went out on my bike today. (I could not get any pliers and had to make do with a huge wrench to tighten the last bolts on my bike. I think there may be a market here for good, old-fashioned adjustable American pliers.) Didn’t go far, just around the neighborhood. None of the streets have names, the whole city is laid out by letters and numbers, like our house is in Q9, I think. And all the neighborhoods are identical in layout with the houses often being of the same style. Stalinists designed Brasilia and it shows. But our house has a privileged site, on top of a hill and surrounded by mostly vacant plots behind hedges. A spot of paradise, as long as the karaoke singers eventually tire out. Anyway, finished the morning exercise with a dip in the pool....

Made some domestic decisions this week. Changed the domestics hours a bit to allow our cook to go home at nights. At work, trying to move forward on a few things and dealing with others. Had a nice lunch at home with the Assistant Secretary for the Americas. Knew him in DC. Brazilians value people who seem to like them and who listen as well as talk. I think I meet those qualifications. Members of my staff have reminded me that we are not here to be anybody’s friend but to represent US interests. I think we can try to do both.

July 25:  It was a good week....  I continued my stately pace of contacts with the host government and diplomatic colleagues while dealing with various bureaucratic matters within the Mission and vis-à-vis Washington. Seem to be making headway. It is a humbling experience representing the preeminent First World power in a country like Brazil that combines potential greatness with a huge complexity of problems associated with underdevelopment. Brazil is a lot like us, continental in size, and with an intelligent and diverse population with a sense of the future. But it does not have the advantages that we have, especially in that it – unlike us – does not print the world’s gold standard (i.e. the dollar) and that it started about 100 years later than we did in opening it’s economy and developing its capacity to compete in the global economy. To put it in other words, America is the most advanced capitalist society on earth. Brazil wants to be. Thus to represent the U.S. and its interests here is always to come face-to-face with a less advantaged version of yourself.


August 1: My first full month here has gone okay. I seem to have gotten ahead of the issues I knew I’d have to deal with. Washington sent me a cable this week congratulating me on our reporting. Sort of to make up for some initial doubts in some quarters perhaps. But it is a big job ... the secret is not to feel you need to know – and certainly do not – everything, you also need to wonder about what you don’t know but can still get you. Had a good meeting with the anti-drug czar and a pleasant and useful lunch with the number three from Itamaraty. The staff seems pleased so far with the change. The old leadership appears to be an easy act to follow but newness alone will wear off at some point and I’ll have to make it on my own. But I do believe that listening is something done so little that I may be able to get considerable more mileage from doing just that.

99 Brasilia 02774: Alagoas Governor Unable to Pay Federal Debt

99 Brasilia 02762: Meeting with Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Canabrava

Note:  FOIA exemption 1.4(B) is for "foreign government information" while 1.4(D) pertains to "foreign relations or foreign activities of the US, including confidential sources."  These are under B1 of the the Freedom of Information Act (5 USC 552):  "Information specifically authorized by an executive order to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy. Executive Order 13526."

99 Brasilia 02698: Tri-Border Brazil Update

99 Brasilia 02658: Amazon Research Intensifies As Concerns Over Susceptability to Fire Continue in the Aftermath of the 1998 El Nino Drought