Contentment In Maceio: Saturday Jan 2, 2010

Rebecca had asked Barb about a good place to eat breakfast and Barb told her about a place called the Bodega.  Rebecca had been there before and had liked it, so it was our first destination on Saturday. We took a taxi to the restaurant, which was decorated as a giant teapot. We ate in the bottom of the teapot whose walls where lined with teapots. It was a very interesting building, very light and the tables were solid wood, a golden oak. The chairs were rustic in the sense they were made of the same golden wood, but made to look like parts of the tree. The legs were made to look like thick tree branches. Some had 3 legs and were like stools, some were long benches. 

When we asked about meat free food, the chef pointed out all the dishes on the table buffet that were meat free and then he went back into the kitchen and brought me out a freshly cooked fish, all for me. He smiled as he pushed it onto my plate. I have never had such good service. It was yummy, but the best food I had there had to be the cheese empanadas.

We decided after we ate to take a stroll on the beach, which of course was only a block away. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and a light breeze was blowing in from the ocean. We walked for a while and then ended up at a restaurant on the beach, one of many that lined the beach. We had to keep our plastic chairs on the concrete that marked the boundaries of the restaurant. No walls existed. It was an open space near the ocean crowded with plastic tables and chairs full of families and friends gathering to have lunch on the bunch, hang out, and drink beer.

We ordered juices and sat facing the ocean. To our left was a sandy area designated for volleyball. A group of men were playing a game that was called volleyball football. It was half volleyball and half soccer. Ernani enjoyed watching them play.

Vendors would come by selling their wares. Ernani bought a pair of sunglasses. A street artist came by and we watched him paint a sunset ocean scene with boats on the shore. He painted on a ceramic tile in about 10 minutes’ time. It was fascinating watching him blend the colors on the tile itself and then outline the shapes of the objects, the boats, palm trees, sun, as he used another flat tool to shape them and bring them to life out of the paint. And he was fast. Rebecca bought one from him and we learned he was a student of art and worked the beaches for extra money.

We decided to get another cab and see the new mall. The mall was not there when Rebecca lived in Maceio. Our cab driver was great. He told us that he was learning Italian because the majority of tourists to Maceio were Italians. They were coming in droves and even buying land. I was impressed with the taxis. They were all clean and even air conditioned. The price was never a surprise either. The drivers were communicative and only once did one take us to a different place than where we had asked to go. This is the complete opposite experience I have had with Mexican taxi cabs and drivers. I had no reservations about taking a cab in Maceio.

When we got to the mall, the first thing I notices was that it was such a different shopping experience than Ponta de Barro or the Mercados and Artisans on the beach. It was air-conditioned and controlled, plastic and factory made, silver and gold, and upper class. The rich shopped here. Not the tourists or the poor.

I am never comfortable in such places. Never.

We did find a store I was comfortable in: Los Americanos. It was reminded me of what Woolworth’s used to be like,  and it was tucked into the corner of the mall. It was the step-child of the mall. It even had that yellowish light I remember Woolworth’s having and the overstocked shelves and all the items crushed together that simultaneously sucks me in even as it overwhelms me. It was not an unorganized thrift store either. It was one step up from that. It was the kind of place I do feel comfortable in--the kind of place with reasonable prices and lots and lots of miscellaneous items to impulsively buy without bankrupting me.

 There was no air conditioning, just large fans at the entrance blowing into the back of the store. We ended up in the sandals section where I found a decently priced pair of Havianas and a hat. We even found chocolate here. We waited in line a little while to check out, but what impressed me the most was that the cashiers got to sit while they checked us out. This is something every cashier in the States should protest for the right to do. It was so much more humane than standing all day long.

We exited the store and went back into the shiny mall where we window shopped, getting a sense of the Brazilian fashions. I do love their shoe stores and my cousin Jamie would have too. She loves shoes and they had more varieties of shoes in a shoe store there than the Shoe Carnival does here. Almost all of them were high heeled and beautiful pieces of art the klutzy Lisa could never wear, but that was okay. It was like a museum of shoes, so I looked and I imagined and I dreamed.

We took a break, sat on a bench, and watched the people a while before we got another cab to go back to the apartment. I wore my green striped straw hat from Los Americanos home in the cab.

Barb came by to visit later that afternoon with her son’s mother-in-law. Their kids had just had a baby and Barb said they were the two crazy Grandmothers who had sent a parcel to Chicago of baby items for a large price. The mother-in-law also told us about how she tried to go to the States to spend a month helping with the baby and visiting her daughter and son-in-law, but the U.S. would not give her a Visa. They were afraid she would stay past the Visa. She was a single mother in Brazil and I guess women without men are still a threat to the patriarchy. Fear the widow. She might never leave or hoodwink you and defy your crazy rules.

It is amazing to think that an average person, just like us, would be denied the ability to travel and see her family. And it was clear she had a full life in her home country. Why would she want to leave that full life for good and move to cold Chicago illegally? To leave her full and happy life, house, other sons and daughters? It seemed obvious she would visit her daughter after that daughter had a baby and then come back to the full life she had elsewhere. It made no sense to deny her a Visa when she had a return trip planned. I began to feel grateful that Brasil had not denied us entry into their beautiful country. And grateful that they knew we would want to go back to the life we had there even if we feel a little bit in love with their country.

That evening, we had dinner with Ernani’s cousins. Alini and Mario Jorge picked us up and we meet Cristiano,  Luciana, her son Mateus, Eduardo and Flavio at a very nice restaurant. We sat outside and enjoyed drinks and a meal together. Ernani had a very good time seeing his cousins again and I kept wishing I could speak Portuguese. I wanted so much to converse with everyone without anyone thinking about translating for me. Still, it was wonderful seeing Ernani speak so animatedly with his cousins and to see Rebecca enjoying seeing them as well. When your loved ones are happy, so are you.