A Folha da Frontera
(The Frontier Page)
The Official Newsletter of the Hayes-Bohanan's Rondônia
Travels
Volume II, No. 1 - July 2000
The Whole Family
If you knew us back in 1996, you may recall receiving three issues
of Folha da Fronteira, Volume I, which documented James’ travels to Brazil
for dissertation research. This summer James returned for a conference and
some follow-up research, and the whole family went along. We’ve been back
in the States for several weeks, and we think it’s time to share our experiences.
This edition of Folha is based on our recollections and on journals Pam and
Paloma kept during the trip.
“I’m Going Bra-zil”
Of course, the decision to take Paloma – who was not quite three – for
a month in Brazil is not one we took lightly. In the months leading up to
the trip, we talked with Paloma about it quite a lot, and near our departure
she was telling everyone she knew that she was headed to “BRA-ZIL!” The whole
family needed shots, and Paloma was very brave getting hers. It helped that
she got shiny Band-aids ™. |
Paloma, Pam & James
at the Brennand
ceramic factory and museum near Recife |
Paloma is a good air traveler, and was pretty excited about all the planes.
As she wrote in her travel book, “We ate on the plane. We slept on the plane.”
Varig, the major airline of Brazil, is a bit shaky on organization but very
strong on service, especially for kids. Paloma enjoyed a number of special
toys and meals, and a lot of fussing over by the flight attendants.
In order to make the adventure last, we decided to depart from Miami,
rather than Boston. As soon as the semester ended, we started driving south,
visiting friends in Pennsylvania and Georgia. In Florida, we stayed with
Pam’s mom for a couple of days before heading to Miami, where we spent the
last night before our flight with friends. From Miami, we flew overnight
to São Paulo. The good news was that the Customs people there ushered
us through the line quickly because we had a tot. The bad news was that this
made our layover even longer – stretching from about six a.m. to 10 p.m.
– too brief to really enjoy the city (one of the largest in the world), but
too long to be comfortable in the airport. We did take a shuttle into the
center of the city, but spent most of the day pacing and chasing Paloma.
Arriving in Porto Velho
We arrived in Porto Velho, the capital of Rondônia, early in the
morning of May 27. We crashed in
a hotel for what was left of the night, and then James’ friend Miguel took
us to his house, where we met up with some other friends from the 1996 trip.
As Pam wrote in her journal, “I spent my 36th birthday meeting James’ friends
and listening to them tell me how much he talked about me when he was here
four years ago.” James and Pam had been apart for her birthday that time.
:-(
Our House
This time it was a bit trickier finding a place to stay, as most people
do not have enough extra room for a family of three. A friend of a friend
came through, however, letting us spend our three weeks in Porto Velho at
his house. He is a government official with a very large house by Brazilian
standards. It was only near the end of our trip that we realized it is actually
smaller than our home in Bridgewater – but it has less stuff in it and it
looks larger in comparison to other houses in Porto Velho.
The house has two stories and is located in a new, gated community.
Our bachelor host spends very little time in the house because of work, school
and church (he is one of the growing number of Assembly of God adherents
in Brazil). For this reason the house had few amenities, and it was not child-proof.
The tile floors and steep stairs made us nervous with Paloma running around,
as did some dangling wires. Our room had air conditioning, though, which was
something we really did not expect.
|
Paloma enjoyed taking her baths in the
sink. She also enjoyed helping out with the laundry, which we did by hand
in the same sink. |
|
Hanging out: Every
house in the north of Brazil has at least one set of hammock hooks. We spent a lot of time relaxing
in this hammock,
which James had used on his 1996 trip. |
Magic Realism
(From Pam’s journal, 6/1/00)
“Yesterday we saw the black strips of ash falling from the sky that reminded
me of the sugar cane burning from the [Rio Grande] Valley, but this was from
burning trash. It is like a surreal precipitation and I am reminded once again
about magic realism.”
(From Pam’s journal, 6/1/00)
“Today we went to the most wonderful place. It was a place on the Rio with
a waterfall and there were hundreds of butterflies around. It was very much
magic. The butterflies flew all around us in all colors. I’ve seen that many
butterflies before, but never so many different species. I saw one of the
big blue butterflies [Blue Morpho] that James told me about when he came back
the last time. There was a treacherous bridge that James kept wanting to
take a picture of with a car on it. It was made of wood planks spaced wide
enough apart for a car to drive on. Graça drove over it with us in
[the car] so James could take a picture. I was somewhat freaked.
“The other day while we were at UNIR
[the Federal University of Rondônia] a tractor trailer overturned right
outside the gate of the university. It was carrying fabric softener. We could
still smell the fragrance when we drove by the spot today.”
A Lingua Portuguesa
(From Pam’s journal, 6/1/00)
“I was very proud of James yesterday. We went to UNIPEC [a private university] to hear Miguel’s
talk about Amazon perceptions. When we got there Graça asked James
what he knew about the Internet. He answered ‘a lot.’ She shuttled him off
to a room full of people waiting to hear a talk about English for the Internet.
He spoke for almost an hour in Portuguese without preparation.”
Pam, of course, speaks Spanish quite well, which was gave her a good head
start in learning Portuguese. The languages are different, though, especially
in their pronunciation. Pam found that she could read things pretty easily,
but was reminded that it is real work learning to speak and comprehend a language.
She made impressive progress in a short time, however, by working with a
textbook and spending time conversing with her new friends.
Paloma enjoying pops
with her
friend Daniel in
downtown Porto Velho. |
The children of our friends in Porto Velho were anxious to meet Paloma,
but had been concerned that she would not be able to play with them because
of the language gap. She never noticed! She made fast friends with quite
a few kids – most of them the children of professors at UNIR. She picked
up about a dozen words of Portuguese, but only toward the end of the trip
did she seem to realize that a different language was being spoken. It never
made her shy. |
Consumer Products
One of the findings of James’ work in 1996 was that the global marketers
had certainly found Porto Velho. Still, we were a bit concerned that we
would not be able to find some of the products we needed. It turned out we
could, though there were some differences.
(From Pam’s journal, 6/3/00)
“Diapers, tampons, and sanitary napkins only come in packs of ten. It seems
that anyone would have to buy more than one package at a time, so I find this
very odd. Baby wipes were very difficult to find. We finally found some Johnson’s
™ wipes in a pop-up canister of 70. When I opened it, I mentioned to James
that they were small and thin. He responded with `Well, at least they were
expensive.’ ”
The interesting point here – from James’ perspective – is that although
the American consumer-products companies have been able to sell consumer
culture, they have not yet been required to compete on the basis of quality
and price. In a place where incomes are relatively low, it seems the profit
margin is nonetheless quite handsome.
Begging
In 1996, James had been surprised at how uncommon it was to encounter panhandlers
in Porto Velho. In 2000, it is still quite uncommon, but we had a couple
of very unusual encounters, both in the center of the city.
(From Pam’s journal, 6/11/00)
“Two days ago James and I were at the bus stop and a man asked for some
change. We refused him and he asked again. We refused again and he walked
away. He came back a minute later and put 50 cents in Paloma’s hand, looked
at us directly, scowled, and walked away, [crossing himself].”
The other incident was in some ways even more unusual. One of our favorite
pastimes in Porto Velho was to visit an area along the Rio Madeira near
the old train station and city dock. It is the departure point for pleasure
boats on the river, and it has a long series of tiki huts selling food and
drink and playing music. It was at a table here that we were approached one
day by a man selling necklaces, a few of which we purchased.
Several days later, we were near the place when the same man asked James
for help picking up a heavy garbage pail, which he put on his head and carried
across a road for disposal. Clearly he had been hired to do this. We were
very surprised a few minutes later when he appeared at our table asking for
change. At first James misunderstood him, thinking that he wanted change for
a one-Real note. When we realized that he was just panhandling, we were very
surprised because of the previous two encounters. More surprising was that
he objected when James gave him only a couple of coins. As he walked away,
our waiter had a few words with him, and we never saw the man on subsequent
visits to the area.
Pam greatly enjoyed drinking
coconut water straight from the coconut. She is shown here doing so
at our favorite spot by the Rio Madeira. |
The beaches in Recife
are lined with tents from which food and drink are sold. This one had by far
the most interesting theme. The captions can be loosely translated as “Hey,
foxy!” and “Stop taking your Viagra!” |
Recife
Our final week was spent in the Northeast at a conference. It is a resort
area with great beaches so it seemed more like a vacation. We were amazed
to find that many products were actually cheaper there than they had been
in the Amazon. While on the beach we encountered dogs, cats, chickens, horses
and even cows!
While in Recife we stayed at a charming bed and breakfast run by a family
with a daughter just a year older than Paloma. We were invited to the daughter’s
dance recital, where Paloma got to pick the winner of the door prize.
Home again
We flew back to Miami in late June and spent two weeks driving back to
Bridgewater. We visited some friends and family along the way, some we had
not seen in many years, and we took Paloma up Scorpion Knob, the mountain
on James’ mother’s family property in North
Carolina. |
No real story here –
just
a very cute picture of
Paloma. |
To read about James' 1996 trip, see Folha da Frontera - Volume I, No. 1
To read about James' 2003 trip with a student, see Folha da Frontera
- Volume III
To read about James' 2004 visit to Florianopolis and Rio de Janeiro,
see Folha da Frontera - Volume IV
Back to Rondônia Web.
