The Cats of Istanbul

Oh, to be a cat in Istanbul….

I’ve never been anywhere where the street animals were so healthy-looking and tolerated.  Once you get to the main square here in Sultanahmet, you will see one of three dogs who seem to have claimed the space for their own.  They are a bit skinny, but they doze on the sidewalks and stairs in cool shadows while people automatically adjust their courses so as not to disturb them.

It’s the cats, however, that have their bluff in.  I can look out my hotel window at any given moment and see at least one cat.  There are brown tabbys and orange ones.  There are mostly white cats and calicos.  I even saw a big black fluffy one trailing a majestic plume of a tail the other day.

It is an act of Muslim charity to take care of these homeless animals.  I have often seen people putting cat food out for them.  Yesterday, a guy from a restaurant stepped out and fed a whole pan of sausage to a large group of cats.  They pawed at and fought over the largesse.

In addition to the food, cats also get to go pretty much wherever they want.  I just passed one on my way into the hotel who had curled up in a soft sunny chair in the outside dining area.  A young orange tabby that reminded me a tremendous amount of my Mom and Dad’s cat Cheeze was roaming around the tombstones in the Suliyemanye area this morning.  They are ubiquitous.

The best example of the affection for cats here in Istanbul can be seen in the Obama cat.  When the President visited here, a cat somehow came in with him as he visited the Ayasofya.  Since he is so high profile and since he won his re-election not long after that, the idea arose that this was a lucky cat.  He now has a home and food and all the petting and paparazzi he can take.

Of course, these sleek kittehs only increase my longing to my own babies back home.  I’m glad to give these street cats the love I cannot give to my own pets at the present.  I think everybody wins.

Divine Wisdom

 



This trip has been filled with beauty.  My eager little soul has soaked up every curve, every arch, every fluted pillar of it.  I knew, though, that I was really waiting for one thing, the ancient jewel every emperor wanted for his imperial crown, the ancient, the enduring.

Everyone has heard of Hagia Sofia.  It is one of those rare places that has managed to endure no matter what has come against it, be it earthquake or regime change.  For Mehmet II, the one who became known as the Conqueror in 1453, this massive house of worship with its golden mosaics and soaring dome symbolized empire, centralized authority, glory and grandness that could be passed down.

To be in Ayasofya is another experience altogether.  There are no pictures that do it justice.  If one comes to it as I did, after a long journey through the mosques of Sinan and the ornate splendor of Topkapi Palace, I suppose that some might find it a let down.  To be sure, she (because great buildings have a sense of gender to them, and Ayasofya can be nothing but a queen) isn't as ornate as her near neighbors.  A quick trip across the fountain-filled courtyard can take you to the Sultanahmet mosque if your taste runs to knock-you-down glory in decoration.

The Ayasofya has been around long enough to understand that there is an art and a beauty in something a bit more understated.  The long logia have colors, it's true, but they are muted by time.  Even the restored sections are soft, part of a building made to glow by the light of candles instead of compete with the sun.

We toured it from the top down, so the mosaics were some of the first things I saw.  For years, I have seen pictures of the mosaic of Christ the Pantocreator in textbooks, online, and everywhere the Byzatine empire or Constantinope was mentioned.  It is almost a go-to image for those topics.  Today, I saw the real thing, and I realized just how feeble all our efforts at capturing some things on film really are.  (This, of course, did NOT stop me from taking photo after photo.)

Barb, one of the leaders of the trip, grabbed my hand and pulled me over to an unassuming arch overlooking the apse and told me to look up.  When I did, it literally made me catch my breath.  Hanging there like some sort of mystical vision was the massive mosaic of Mary and baby Jesus that once served as a focal point over the now-vanished altar.  I twisted and turned, working to catch the golden glow that seemed to radiate from inside the image.

As we paused to consider some of the archetectural details around us, Dana, one of the professors on the trip, began to talk about the importance of Ayasofya for the various people who possessed it and what their purposes might have been in the changes they made.  As a part of that, she read "Sailing to Byzantium" by Yeats.  I had completely forgotten that poem in relationship to this trip even though it is a part of my curriculum almost every year in the form of a line taken from it that we analyze for practice.  Since we were wearing the "whisper" headsets that are so deservedly popular on group tours now, I had the freedom to wander while she talked.  When she named the poem she was going to read, I found a quiet corner, stared up into the gloaming gold above me, and let literature and history and art collide.

The poem is as follows:

I
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
---Those dying generations---at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,

Fish, flesh, or fowl commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unaging intellect.

II
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

III
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me 
Into the artifice of eternity.

IV
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come. 

Finally, we picked our way through the tides of tourists to the main floor.  I stopped to stick my thumb in the famous wishing hole, and I had that strange juxtaposition that sometimes happens between my Japanese past and my present elsewhere when two young women stood in line behind me and we had one of those quick tourist conversations about what they were supposed to do.  When it was my turn, I managed to twist my arm so that my hand made a complete revolution without my thumb leaving the indention.  This means, according to legend, that I get a wish.  We shall see if it comes true...

I hurried to catch up with my group, and as I did, the high-ceilinged heart of Ayasofya enfolded me.  I came to a sudden stop, unable to do more than stare upward in that open-mouthed way of tourists everywhere in the world.  Even with one side covered in restoration scaffolding, it was a powerful sight.  I wondered around with my camera raised seeking the perfect angle, the perfect setting to try to hold the gentle majesty around me, but I was constantly dissatisfied feeling that I was failing in my efforts, feeling that once again my skill with the Nikon was insufficient to capture what my eye was seeing.  Above me, the placid eyes of the newly-restored angel with six wings were largely unconcerned by such trivialities.

When it came time for us to go, I did so with great reluctance.  Part of me wanted only to sit at the base of one of the columns and let the hushed tide of the past wash over me.  As I stood in the obligatory cafe outside waiting for the last members of the group to appear, I took out one of the little notebooks I keep with me at all times and started scribbling a few thoughts about the experience while they were fresh in my mind.  I think I'll close with one of them.

"And now when I dream, I will always dream of Hagia Sophia....All the rest of the world dims beside it."

Musical Healing

After a late breakfast, we packed up our bags one last time and headed out for our last day "on the road."  We started out at the Sultan II. Beyazid Kulliyesi ve Saglik Muzesi.  This complex, built by the Sultan Beyazid II, was designed to be a teaching hospital.  I didn't know quite what to expect out of a hospital museum.  It turned out to be fascinating for a number of reasons.

The first thing I noticed was the beauty of the surroundings.  All the buildings were of a pale cream stone that glowed in the morning light.  Gardens of roses and lavender scented the cool air.  The only sounds were birdsong, falling water from two fountains, and soft simple music.

The former hospital now has lifesize dummies posed in diorama that depict what day-to-day life was like there during the Ottoman Empire.  I am usually not a fan of mannequins, but these were well-done.  They detailed the types of treatments one could receive at the complex as well as what the various people - patients, physicians, student doctors - had and did.

So many of the things they were doing then are things we've only just now started to experiment with in the West.  Cataract surgery was already being performed in the Middle Ages as were C-section births and other things we didn't adopt until much later.  In a time when most of the people with mental health issues were being locked away and treated like wayward animals, the Ottomans sought a cure and dignity for each.  Why did it take the West so long to catch up to these ideas?

The thing I found most interesting was the concept of musical healing. One of their major forms of treatment for physical and psychological disorders both was exposure to different kinds of music.  At all times, the fountain kept beautiful sound echoing off the in-patient housing wing.  Patients would attend performances of all the different types of music depending on what they needed to help with their specific issues.  See the picture below for a description of what each type did and for whom.

There is a logic to this.  Think about how many times we use music casually to lift ourselves out of a bad mood.  Think about the research done on the possibility for damage or even death caused by excessive exposure to loud, low bass.  We even had the cliche about music soothing the savage soul.  Everything around us seems to be telling us that this is a good idea.  It's just taken us about 400 years to get back to it in our part of the world.

I bought two CDs, one of Rast and one of Rehavi.  The Rast, supposedly good for scholars, is something to try in my classroom.  I personally am going to try the Rehavi next time I get a migraine.  Who knows whether it will work or not?  I have tried everything else under the sun, including some medicines that have made me very, very ill in their own right.  Maybe it's time I took a leaf from the Ottoman Physician Desk Reference and let something I already enjoy become something that can heal me.

Gallipoli

Today was the kind of sunny day you always see in films.  The sky was bright blue and utterly cloudless.  Our trusty white bus slid with surprising and almost naval grace along curving roads.  Along the way, fields of golden sunflowers stretched into the distance.

We were headed for the battlefields of Gallipoli, site of the attempted invasion by England and France, site of Ataturk’s great battle success.  We’d been on the bus for hours getting here, and to be honest, I didn’t know what to expect.  I’ve been to battlefields before, Vicksburg and whathaveyou, but I had no idea of what was awaiting us.

Gallipoli is not just a battlefield.  It is also a graveyard to the thousands upon thousands of young men who never left there.

We saw the pillbox machine gun nests first.  These smallish grey concrete boxes clinging to the hillside and the beach seemed terribly incongruous with the deep aquamarine of the ocean below.  Several of them had tumbled from their supports and were slowly being eroded by the waves.

Next came the first cemetery at Anzac Cove.  Just before we entered the graveyard, we stopped to read Ataturk’s words on a huge sculpture nearby.  Of Gallipoli, he said:

"Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives…
You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours…
You, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace, after having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well."

By the time I got through reading it, I had tears in my eyes.  How many world leaders have had the grace and the basic humanity to say something like this about an enemy that had tried to kill them personally?  The magnitude of understanding and compassion in this inscription is something we could use today, the ability to recognize that the things that divide us don’t have to demonize the other side.

Our bus continued on its winding path to the Lone Pine cemetery, mostly made up of Australia’s dead.  An entire hillside is covered with small neat stones. On each is a name, a date, and an age.  When you walk through the rows of markers, I think it is the ages that rise up and demand acknowledgment.  Here is one who was only 22.  Another was 18.  Beside him lies a soldier who was only 15.  They were children.  Just children.

In addition to the absolute heart-break of the ages is the fact that almost every one has an additional
inscription.  Many are the repetitive stock phrases we employ as epitaph.  Some are wrenchingly personal – a message telling the departed that his sisters will miss him, a phrase somehow managing to express pride and endless grief at the same time.  Some people have traveled great distances to lay crudely fashioned crosses against the base of the markers.  Others have stuck silk “buddy poppies” in the crevasses of the massive stone walls of names beside the one their family lost in the battle.

I could feel the weight of the place like a physical hand on my back.  We stopped once more to see the trenches in which this bloody bit of history had happened.  Now, they look so innocuous.  It’s hard to imagine anything more complex than a child’s game of hide and seek happening in the shallow timber-reinforced structures.  The moment that it sinks in that this is the ground that ran red and that this is the place where Ataturk told his men, “I’m not commanding you to fight.  I am commanding you to die,” it can never be seen as a playful place again.

Surreally, as we wound our way down the recently repaved roads, we began to pass picnicking families, men who had strung up hammocks between the trees near the beach.  Little children were splashing and dunking one another within sight of one of the crumbling pillboxes.  A brightly-colored kiosk selling cotton candy and ice cream beckoned.  I could not resolve these things in my mind, the stark rows of stones marching across the hill and the red and white flowered beach umbrella.

Perhaps, in the end, the children and the ice cream were actually always a part of it.  Both sides surely thought they were doing what was necessary, right, and good to allow safety for all things, even children at play.  History tells us that without the Turkish victory at Gallipoli, the modern nation I am in right now would not exist in this form.  Maybe after all, all of those who laid down their lives on those shores, so many of them really just kids themselves, would be proud to see that the grim grey pillboxes are not all of the story.

Subjective History

Yesterday we went to Iznik.  It's famous for a variety of reasons.  First, it is a center for the production of the fabulous and famous tiles named after the city itself.

Even more than this, Iznik was once Nicea.  Nicea was the site of several councils that defined modern Christianity.  The first was held in a church in the city about 325 AD.  Three hundred and eighteen bishops from all across the Roman world were called to Nicea by Constantine because he happened to have a summer house there.  Together, they decided what was and was not going to be acceptable practice and belief.

The most famous result of these conferences in Nicea was the Nicene Creed.  If you are not familiar with it, here it is:

We believe in one God, 
the Father, the Almighty, 
maker of heaven and earth, 
of all that is, seen and unseen. 
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, 
the only Son of God, 
eternally begotten of the Father, 
God from God, Light from Light, 
true God from true God, 
begotten, not made, 
of one Being with the Father. 
Through him all things were made. 
For us and for our salvation 
he came down from heaven: 
by the power of the Holy Spirit 
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, 
and was made man. 
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; 
he suffered death and was buried. 
On the third day he rose again 
in accordance with the Scriptures; 
he ascended into heaven 
and is seated at the right hand of the Father. 
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, 
and his kingdom will have no end. 

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, 
who proceeds from the Father and the Son. 
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified. 
He has spoken through the Prophets. 
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. 
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. 
We look for the resurrection of the dead, 
and the life of the world to come. Amen. 

As you can see, it more or less lines out the basic tenets of Christianity.  I stood in the place where this happened.

The building might not have been the same structure as the one from 325 AD, but it was ancient, even compared to other countries and structures I've been in.  For a long time, it stood mostly derelict.  It was a site of pilgrimage and tourist curiosity for its major and important role in shaping a major world religion.  Signs in Turkish and English pointed out features of interest to those who came to see it.

 Recently, though, the government put a new tile roof on it and consecrated it as a mosque.  One of our group leaders had been there about the time it was closed for that renovation.  She'd been able to go inside, though, and see the scarred and neglected interior and read information placards that let Turkish and English speaking visitors get a sense of what they were looking at.

None of that was there when we went through.  There was no indication that an ancient fresco was tucked under a floor-level arch or that remnants of paintings of the saints clung tenaciously to the high arching ceilings of the apse.  They have survived time, nature, and deliberate defacement during the period when icons were banned, but now, they might lose their fight because of the changing nature of the building and a total lack of preservation.

This one small place leads to a much larger issue.  I was reading Istanbul by Orhan Pamuk today, and he talked at length about the idea that the Turkish nationalist have gone out of their way to co-opt the things they think reinforce their narrative of Turkey and her origins.  He says:

"When they wished to emphasize the Turkish of Muslim side...conservative writers created an Ottoman heaven where no one questioned the power or legitimacy of the pasha, where families and friends confirmed their ties to one another through rituals and traditional values....  Aspects of Ottoman culture that might offend westernized middle-class sensibilities - concubines, the harem, polygamy, the pasha's right to beat people - were tamed and softened...."

I would like to add to this list that in their efforts to refashion the past to suit them that they've also chosen to ignore, rewrite, or knock down vast portions of their history, which also happens to be critical history of the rest of the world.  In excluding things from their own narrative, they are removing the ability to keep these things for others whose narrative run along with and alongside that of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey.

We've talked a lot in this institute about how those who conquer get to take the stuff they want, slap their namebrand on it to legitimize their authority, and then use it as a base to surpass the accomplishments of that previous culture.  The great example of this is the Aya Sofia, of course, and the Suleymaniye sitting right down the street, glittering, lovely, and just that tiny bit more grandiose than the church-turned-mosque had been....

While every people should get to say what happens to the stuff in their own country, I think that if the present revision and re-envisioning of Turkey's past continues, a great loss will occur.  I don't just mean that those for whom these places and items have present significance will lose.  I mean that someday, the people of Turkey will look up and realize that they should have protected these things, should have found a way to hold them even if they weren't "en vogue" for a long time.  They will want them.  They will miss them.  In the way of such things, they will mourn for their loss.  Perhaps they will even build simacrula of them, put museums on the ruins of what is left.  It's happened elsewhere.

Wouldn't it be lovely if instead they simply found a way to keep the real instead of having to remake history?

The Hand of Fatima

Hand of Fatima - Bought in Istanbul 7/9/13

Yesterday, I bought a necklace with the Hand of Fatima on it.  I have seen the emblem numerous times, but I've never been exactly sure of its meaning.  Today, I asked one of the instructors on the trip to take a look at my necklace and help me out.   

The Hand of Fatima is ancient symbol that seems to reach as far back as ancient Mesopotamia.  Three of the world's largest religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, all have a version of it.  For the Jews, it is the Hand of Miriam.  For the Christians, the Hand of Mary.  Islam reveres it as the Hand of Fatima, daughter of the prophet Mohammed.  It is most widely used in Islam, and I have seen a million of these since I got here.  They're on everything...soap tins, necklaces, key chains, stickers, wallets.  It is hard to look around you very long without finding a Hamsa staring back.

Its purpose is very straight-forward.  It is an apotropaic charm, or magic to keep away the dreaded "evil eye."  (And for at least one of you who might be reading this, a song just started up in your head.  You know who you are. Go ahead.  Sing it.  You know you want to....)  There are various configurations of the charm.  If the fingers are open, then its purpose is to ward off evil.  If the fingers are closed, it is to hold in the good luck.  There is almost always an eye in the middle, although this, too, can vary.  For more on the symbolism and meaning of the Hamsa, please refer to this article from Wikipedia.  

Added to the hamsa aspect are other good luck and protective elements.  The eye in the center is made of turquoise, which, after a quick search online, has turned out to be a stone associated from ancient times with protection and connection to the spiritual.  The copper chain is designed to enhance this, too.  The other element added to this piece is a small amulet that has the most famous verse in the entire Quran, the throne verse, on it.  

The throne verse looks like this:

للَّهُ لاَ إِلَهَ إِلاَّ هُوَ الْحَيُّ الْقَيُّومُ لاَ تَأْخُذُهُ سِنَةٌ وَلاَ نَوْمٌ لَهُ مَا فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَمَا فِي الأَرْضِ مَنْ ذَا الَّذِي يَشْفَعُ عِنْدَهُ إِلاَّ بِإِذْنِهِ يَعْلَمُ مَا بَيْنَ أَيْدِيهِمْ وَمَا خَلْفَهُمْ وَلاَ يُحِيطُونَ بِشَيْءٍ مِنْ عِلْمِهِ إِلاَّ بِمَا شَاءَ وَسِعَ كُرْسِيُّهُ السَّمَاو ;َاتِ وَالأَرْضَ وَلاَ يَئُودُهُ حِفْظُهُمَا وَهُوَ الْعَلِيُّ الْعَظِيمُ

and looks like this in Roman script:

Allahu la ilaha illa Huwa, Al-Haiyul-Qaiyum La ta'khudhuhu sinatun wa la nawm, lahu ma fis-samawati wa ma fil-'ard Man dhal-ladhi yashfa'u 'indahu illa bi-idhnihi Ya'lamu ma baina aidihim wa ma khalfahum, wa la yuhituna bi shai'im-min 'ilmihi illa bima sha'a Wasi'a kursiyuhus-samawati wal ard, wa la ya'uduhu hifdhuhuma Wa Huwal 'Aliyul-Adheem

and means this:

"Allah! There is no god but He - the Living, The Self-subsisting, Eternal. No slumber can seize Him Nor Sleep. His are all things In the heavens and on earth. Who is there can intercede In His presence except As he permitteth? He knoweth What (appeareth to His creatures As) Before or After or Behind them. Nor shall they compass Aught of his knowledge Except as He willeth. His throne doth extend Over the heavens And on earth, and He feeleth No fatigue in guarding And preserving them, For He is the Most High. The Supreme (in glory)."

[Surah al-Baqarah 2: 255]

This verse, then, shows the power of God to protect, to preserve, to conquer all evil.  The words make the third part of the connection.  

I am fascinated by good luck charms from all over the world, but there is just something special about the ones here, the big blue eye disk and the hand of Fatima.  I think one of the things that draws me to them is that they are found all over the world.  In fact, something very like the hand appears in the pottery and artifacts of the Mississippian culture of Native American groups living all over the Southeast.  Some of the most famous examples of this have been dug up at Moundville, the archaeological site administered by the University of Alabama. It was not so much a protective symbol for them as it was a gate to the Underworld, their interpretation of the constellation we call Orion.  For more on the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex that Moundville is a part of, click here.

This motif, then, is ancient and pervasive.  Although the window dressing changes, the meaning has been around and around and around for millennia.  That's hard to wrap my mind around, but there is also something tremendously important here.  Cultures so far apart and that we think of as such separate and isolated little bundles share this symbol.  My friend Takashi would probably laugh at how much this amazes me and tell me that it is simply because we are all human.  It's a piece of the common bedrock we all somehow share no matter how often we forget that connection.  Every time I put on my very Muslim hamsa, I am going to feel that bond.  It makes an already special piece of jewelry even more meaningful, a reminder of the tie that stretches across time and culture.

The Thing I Carried

(with apologies to Tim O'Brien)

This morning, the first object I saw when I woke up was a large crystal ball on my bedside table.  In that strange place between sleep and wakefulness, between staying in my bed and rising to meet the insistent demands of cats that wanted to be fed and dogs that needed to be walked, I focused my eyes on the little bubbles that float eternally inside it like miniature planets in a tiny solar system.  What I saw was more than an object.  Memories are captured in that sphere.

Of course, the first and greatest of the memories is of where I got it.  Rita's public school, David Campista, was one of the best parts of the "homestay" to me.  The head principal started taking care of us even before we arrived, helping Rita get us to and from the airport in Campinas, three hours away from Pocos.  Rita also told us that Leone had assisted her in planning our trip itinerary.

Our day at David Campista included all sorts of student presentations where we got to see all the wonderful talents the students there had.  We saw elementary school kids dancing to pop music, high school students presenting information about their hometown and their nation, and even a rap group that is in competition for a recording contract.  There were guitarists and singers, dancers of every conceivable style.  Even the walls of the school itself presented, banner projects made by one of the English classes describing the scenic and historic places in Pocos in English hung everywhere.

Both before and after the evening presentation, we found ourselves in a roundtable discussion about education with the teachers from the night shift.  They were curious about so many things, our class size, our salary, what our supervisory system and system of evaluation were like.  They wanted to know as much about us as American educators as we had come to Brazil wanting to know about them.  We talked and talked until long after the hours for the regular school session had ended.

At the very end of it, they brought out two beautifully-wrapped packages.  We opened them, and as the picture will show you, a beautiful crystal globe awaited each of us.  Pocos is known for its cristalarias, its makers of fine crystal and murano glass.  We'd seen someone making tiny crystal animals at a crafts pavilion at a waterfall we'd visited; we'd been to one of the large showrooms downtown for one of the companies.  I personally had been wanting to buy a beautiful paperweight, had been wanting one for a long, long time.  I never expected to own anything as lovely as this one, though.  The size of a small melon, it sat in my cupped palms once I got it out of its protective wrappings, for all the worlds like a sphere full of rushing river water that had somehow become solid.  I knew that every time I saw it, I would think of my trip to Brazil and all the kindness I had received, of all I had learned and experienced.

Getting anything that large and fragile home becomes a challenge.  It rode in a special tote bag carry-on during the two plane rides I would take to get back to the United States, snugged in its bubble wrap and nestled next to my other great fragile treasure, my Nikon.  It was one of the first things I unpacked when I finally got everything in the house.  It will probably go to school with me when the new year begins.  Meanwhile, it sits softly gleaming where it is one of the last things I see when I go to bed and one of the first when I start my day.

Photo Links

All my photos are housed on Picasa. It occurs to me that I shared the links with my Facebook friends, but I haven't posted them here. Here are all my photo sets from Brazil.

 Brasilia -- This album has miscellaneous scenic pictures from Brasilia

Public and Private in Brasilia - This link will take you to photos I shot in Elefante Branco and Marista

Pocos de Caldas - Non-school photos from the "homestay" portion of the trip

Sao Paulo - Photos taken on a the field trip we went on the first Saturday in Pocos.

Schools in Pocos de Caldas - Photos taken in the various public schools we visited.

Presentation to Pocos English Teachers - Shots taken during a professional development session for English teachers

Coffee and Wine, Minas Gerais  - A journey into the hills outside Pocos

Brazil by iPhone - random shots from everywhere, many modified with Instagram or Pixlromatic

Continuing Fascination

Even though I am home now, I am far from putting this trip on a shelf like an interesting artifact, something shiny to look at but with no real meaning or power.  Instead, I find that even though the actual travel has already occurred, the changes from it will continue to ripple through me for a long time to come.

There's the simple act of looking at and sorting through the vast amount of information we gained while we were there about everything education in Brazil.  We were privileged to see it from so many different angles that putting together something that feels cohesive and inclusive is a mammoth task.  We saw education through the eyes of high government officials, local superintendents, classroom teachers at both public and private schools, pre-service teachers in training at one of the best schools in Brazil, students everywhere, and instructors at specialized  places like language schools.  That is a huge box of stories to consider as one sifts through for the best description of the system as a whole.

There is also a desire to fill in all the huge gaps in my knowledge about Brazil.  A book I had bought before I left, The Brazil Reader, is helping to do that in an interesting way, made up as it is of source documents, first hand accounts and unusual perspectives on the history and culture of Brazil.  I wish I had taken the time from somewhere to read it before I went.  I think I would have understood several things better.  Of course, as I've been reading, I have frequently thought, "Okay, I get that bit because I saw (that place or that thing)."  Without being there first, it might not have had as much significance to me.

It's not just non-fiction, though.  I finished Dona Flor and have Gabriela waiting to go as I continue to enjoy Jorge Amado tremendously.  A book suggested by our Brasilia guide, Roberto, called simply Brazil, has a sample chapter on my Kindle to see if it suits my current obsession or not.

I'm also seeking as much music as I can get my hands on.  Pandora, my old standby, has been of some help with this, but I know I'm probably not getting the latest hits.  Instead, I'm trying to get a feel for standards and famous musicians (more than my friend D. already shared).  Certain names turn up over and over again everywhere, so I think that's a good place to start, especially when I start to read the biographies.

And then there's Portuguese itself.  More than before, even, I want to learn it.  I just have to figure out how and with what tools.  When I first got home, even though I had only been out for 14 days, it was still strange to hear English surrounding me.  Usually, I have to be gone a lot longer than that to have that reaction.  There was something about the Portuguese that was familiar, maybe the Spanish similarities.  I don't know.

Trivially, I have even found Guarana on Amazon.com.  On payday (tomorrow, really), I will order some of it to go along with the Ito En green tea I get from them as a "taste treat" from my days in Japan.  It amuses me to no end that I can get the beautiful green and red cans delivered right to my house.  I know people will think I'm nuts for that, but...well...if it makes me happy and it doesn't hurt anybody...right?

It's all sticking with me, then, more even than I had anticipated.  It's a good thing, I think.  I already find myself saying in my head, "Next time, I want to...."  I have to stop and wonder if I will truly get back.  Somehow I think that I will.  I can't imagine it any other way.

Presentations

In many of the schools we visited in Pocos, we were treated to presentations by the students.  The students had apparently been preparing for our arrival for quite some time, and one day at Integral, a private school, we had a third year class of students do PowerPoints, sing, and present.  One of the younger classes had dancers, girls who are taking classes and choreographing their own routines.  We watched some of middle school students learning dances for their Festa Junina.   Because of the rules of the school, I don't have any pictures from there.  They asked us not to shoot pictures, and we were respectful of that.

Later in the week, we went to David Compista, Rita's public school, and her classes gave us a day of presentations including songs, dances including the traditional forms and freestyle, information about Pocos and Brazil through PowerPoint, and in the night session, rap.  It was wonderful to see all the talents the students had to share with us.  Ali and I each filmed and took pictures as much as possible, and I'm still working on getting all the video off my Bloggie and processed.

I want to be able to show my students how much they have in common with the students I met in Brazil.  I think they will particularly love the rap and freestyle dancing although they will undoubtedly find all of it interesting.  To me, it just goes to reinforce the idea that there are beautiful similarities that exist as a baseline for communication between those students and my own.  Too often, I think my kids think of everybody else, and not necessarily just those in another nation or speakers of another language, as people they have no possible connection with.  When they see people playing the guitar with passion or rapping or dancing or whatever it is that they themselves enjoy doing, I hope they are going to have that precious "A-ha!" moment where they begin to see commonality and points of connection instead of barriers.

As soon as I conquer a few cross-account problems, I will get the videos up here.

Reduce, Recycle, Reuse

Everywhere I have been here in Brazil, I've been struck with how careful they are with their resources.  Even in the smallest schools, there are recycling bins.  It's everywhere.  From the earliest age, children are taught to separate trash so it becomes a natural part of life.  Reuse is something one just *does*.

And shouldn't it be?  Why is it so hard in so many places to get access to even basic recycling services back home?  Should money be an issue when we think about the consequences?  It's so refreshing here to see a different approach and to see everyone at every age involved.

Even in the classroom, teachers promote reuse in several ways.  They recycle materials like old magazines and household goods for student craft projects.  The results are lovely.  That, of course, shouldn't come as a surprise.  Give a kid something colorful, stand back, and watch them produce fantastic results, right?  I also saw them recycle old 2L soda bottles to make tiny trash bins in primary school rooms that could sit right in the middle of the clustered desks for the inevitable curls that develop when colored pencils need to be sharpened, the odd tissue, etc.  They also adapted these old bottles to make a tissue holder for a roll of toilet tissue making a never-ending kleenex dispenser that I am going to try when I get home for my own classroom.

It doesn't stop there.  In the Hippy Market of Brasilia, we saw gorgeous stuff such as purses made from pop tabs and bright thread which were very eye-catching and fashionable, patio sets made from old eighteen-wheeler tires that, if I could just figure out how to get home, I would HAVE, and laser-cut vinyl albums recycled into interesting wall art.  This is the short list, too....

It's refreshing to see "ecofriendliness" as something cultural, not as an afterthought.  Too often where I am, although I know it is different in different parts of our large nation, I think it goes by the wayside.  There is a lot to learn here from the strategies and simple applications I have seen.

500 from Jorge Amado and Me

Yesterday we got up very early, ventured out into the cold darkness of the Brazilian morning, and loaded up on a tour bus to ride the 4 hours into Sao Paulo.  We were going to visit two museums with a field trip group of students from Rita's public school.  Both buses loaded up, I put in my headphones and started Bob Dylan and promptly fell asleep.

We stopped at a gas station for breakfast.  That may not sound very nice to some people, but gas stations here are fairly fancy, almost always with a restaurant attached.  I had woken up sufficiently at this point to have an empada, a food I think I love, with palmito (heart of palm), a food I know I love, in it.  We clambered back on the bus and more sleeping on my part ensued.

When I woke up again, we were on the fringes of Sao Paulo.  I had been waiting to see this city because I have a good friend from it, and I had been wondering for a long, long time what it looked like.  This whole trip, I've felt like I am putting together pieces of people dear to me as I see things they have told me about and the country they are from.  It is a feeling that is important and precious.


Sao Paulo sprawls and towers at the same time.  We wove our way through the streets to the old part of the city and got off the bus at the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo.  All the museums have free admission on the weekends, so it was a busy place. We had to wait awhile for our guide since we were a large school group.  As we waited, we observed a massive Gospel concert that was wedged between the Pinacoteca and the Museu da Língua Portuguesa.  It was incredibly loud, and there were massive numbers of people attending.

When we finally entered, there were fantastic works of art everywhere.  I did my best to photograph some of them.  We couldn't understand all the explanations of our guide, but there were some helpful explanations on cards along the way, so we enjoyed what we saw.  I was particularly pleased to see a rendition of my favorite fictional character hiding along the way, and I snapped him with my iPhone.

After leaving the Pinacoteca, we moved to the Museu da Língua Portuguesa.  I didn't know what to expect, and I was worried that since my command of the the Portuguese language is virtually nil, I would have a hard time understanding anything.  It turned out to be the best part of my day, though.  My first indication that it was going to be good was when I turned over my ticket and saw the Jorge Amado exhibition advertised on the back.

We looked at the first floor with its history of the development of Portuguese in Brazil, watched a huge and wonderful ribbon video of the different words and cultural influences, and then we went upstairs to see the Jorge Amado Centennial exhibition.  It was fantastic.

One of my Brazilian friends recommended that I read things by him before I came, and I started Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands during the school year.  I still haven't finished it yet because of no time to read while I'm teaching, but it is wonderful.  Amado, despite the linguistic, temporal, and cultural differences, somehow reminds me of Chaucer.  He has a sharp wit but is never cruel.  He has a great eye for detail and gives a thorough feel for character and place.  He does what Chaucer does as far as giving you the picture and letting you decide for yourself what the person is like.  He also isn't afraid of...life....I'll say it that way.   It's great stuff if you haven't read him.

There were art pieces using the characters, items from the book and from Bahia in general, and an entire wall of cacao and dende oil  (I don't have all the right accent marks over these things....I am sorry...).  Since they talk about the dende oil so much in Dona Flor, it was so amazing to see it.  They had personal items from Amado including clothing and personal papers, and a wonderful wall full of book covers about him, but my favorite thing was an art installation with the names of all 500 of his characters printed on the traditional ribbons people get from a church in Bahia.  I took my picture in front of them, something I rarely do, and it's now my new Facebook picture.

We walked to another part of the Pinacoteca Museum, the Station Pinacoteca (not even remotely trying for the Portuguese), which had been used as a jail for political prisoners during the dictatorship.  Being in the cells where people where held after being "informed" on was very powerful.  Again, there was a language barrier, but human torment and pain translates with very little difficulty tragically.  Pictures will be up as soon as I can have a little time to edit and upload.

Our day ended with another drive and time spent at the largest retail space in the Southern Hemisphere.  Since I am not much of a "shopper," I went to the two bookstores, we all ate, and that was about all.  The high school kids, of course, were in a kind of heaven.  I guess some things are truly universal.  Well, to each his own.

Friday

(writtten Friday and posted today)

Yesterday was a wild mix of walking aimlessly around Brazilia killing time before the flight and then intensive moment once we got on the plane to Poҫos de Caldas. It went from a full stop to full-on go.

When the four of us who traveled together on the plane to Campinas arrived, we met our respective ILEP alumni teachers at the gate. Rita, ours, is fantastic. She had a cab waiting courtesy of one of her school principals, and in we hopped for the three hour trip to Poҫos. Ali, the other teacher here with me, and I were definitely weary, but we talked on the way to our new home for the week, asking questions and answering them companionably.

When we got to Poҫos, Rita took us to her house to show us around briefly and to collect her son and husband so we could go eat. She has a beautiful house and family. We all went out for pizza in a restaurant where our waiter turned out to have aspirations toward stand-up comedy. He told a joke about “wanting sausage” in English that showed he might have promise, and certainly that he had better command of the subtleties of English than he thought.

Exhausted, as soon as I got checked in to the hotel, I unpacked and fell down. Early this morning, we left for Rita’s school. We talked and presented to four of her classes today. They also had prepared presentations for us, dance numbers based on American pop videos, musical performances with guitar and saxophone, a presentation about what to do here in town, and even a new chocolate desert to discover. The students were universally wonderful.

During the last portion of the last class, I had a serious problem I had to try to resolve back home.  When I checked my email courtesy of the friendly free wi-fi, one of those emails you never want to see but most especially when you are a million miles away popped up like some kind of virulent mushroom in my inbox.  Somebody back in the States swiped/cloned my debit card number and my bank froze my account to stop the (you pick a word YOU like...all mine are profane) from cleaning me out completely.  I did what I could with it, ran up an international phone bill that could sink the economy of a small nation, and we headed out to see some of the sights. The city is lovely and old. Many of the buildings are wonderfully worthy of being photographed. I did some of that as we walked, but I want to go out again on another day when I don’t feel so horrid from dealing with bad things.

Late today, we went to each tilapia and provolone. It was wonderful food. I took pictures that you see here because the smiling fish outside the restaurant and the great food just made me happy.  I needed that badly after the day I had. Just now, I am about to close this post and get ready for bed. Tomorrow, we’re going to Sao Paulo, and it will be a long, long day with a very early start.

The Day in Review

Once we got our feet under us, we wandered around a bit.  My friend Teri and I went to the Hippie Market and the TV Tower.  The TV Tower is exactly what it says on the tin, a giant aerial that has an observation deck on it from which stunning views of the city are possible.   We took lots of pictures, including shots of the currently-under-construction World Cup soccer stadium which is within stone's throwing distance of where we are just now. With the warm sunny day, the tower was quite the place to be. We looked over this incredibly well-thought-out city we're in for a long time, and then we went down to see what could be had in the Hippie Market that sprawled at the base.

The Hippie Market wasn't at all what I was expecting.  It was a thousand times more organized.  Everything in the world was in it, though.  From gemstone items to rasta wear, somebody was making it or selling it.  There were really big furniture, some awesome recycled things like chairs made from old tractor tires and purses from coke can tabs, and even owls crafted from various cones and seed pods.  (No.  No owls are coming home with me; I couldn't figure out how to get them back safely!)

I wound up buying a ring.  I had left everything but my Claddagh at home, and I have been twisting my empty fingers looking for them.  I decided to get something that would be both souvenir and take care of that issue.  I found a gentleman who had lovely rings of many semiprecious stones, and I found a piece of amethyst large enough to knock somebody out with.  We talked to each other in a mixture of languages and settled a price and he even sized it for my index finger while I waited.  I haven't had that much fun since I was in Costa Rica.

After eating a largish lunch, we all piled on our little green tour bus and headed out on the town to see monuments, churches, an other sites of interest.  The first place we stopped was the Santuario Dom Bosco.  Only once or twice in my whole life have I been somewhere as beautiful.  The whole building was stained glass panels, basically.  It was like stepping into a living cube of blue light.  You always hear about something being "breathtaking," but this place actually was.  I could have sat for hours just watching the way the sun played with it.  It was exquisite from every conceivable angle.  The camera-happy among us just ran around like we were punch-drunk, clicking away trying to get all the glory we were seeing with our eyes preserved.

It didn't stop there.  Everything we saw, while not as knock-you-down magnificent as Santuario Dom Bosco, was elegant of line, satisfying to the vision.  It is modern but not in a way that gets in the way of its loveliness.  This fits in with the tone of the city as a whole.

The city (although not the Santuario) is mostly the work of one architect, apparently, something that completely befuddles me.  The architect of almost everything in Brasilia is Oscar Niemeyer who is, I think, 90 something and still going at it.  His design sense is incredibly pleasing to me.

We saw the famous Catedral Municipal of Brasilia today, too, designed to look like a Crown of Thorns, a Cup, and the Host.  The inside was even more amazing than the exterior, if that were possible.  It was another confection of impossible spans of stained glass and sculpture.  I could have sat in it forever.

Everywhere we went today, whether it was looking at the Superblocs of housing or just driving down the streets, we were surrounded by Niemeyer's dream for Brasilia.  It is lovely.  Even though I am exhausted, it has been a fantastic trip through this city.

TGC Brazil

Here's the group I'll be travelling to Brazil with plus the ILEP teacher who presented to us Saturday.  Don't we all look shiny?  I'm betting the photos from the road won't look quite as tidy....  I thought I'd post this one now to chronicle the beginning.  These are great folks, and I'm looking forward to heading out with them.  Thanks to Perry for the photo.  I was too lazy to get the Nikon out.  (And no, I don't know what was wrong with my hair, but it had that problem all weekend and in every photo...)