August 03, 2003
Homage to Going Somewhere Else
Gary gave me an envelope to take to the foreign ministry on Friday. He told me to get a driver to take me over there, but it's about a five minute walk to I decided to foot it instead. It was hot on Friday, something that I was happy about because I want summer and, while the weather here is nice, Brasília is in its winter now and it doesn't get hot as often as I'd like.
So I'm walking on the sidewalk, looking at the sky and the clouds here that sometimes look like they're higher than should be. I'm walking and I'm looking at the mango trees and the Brazilian government buildings that I'm headed for and I begin to think about where I am on the planet.
Earlier in the day, a guy named Renato had mentioned the heat. He was making small talk and he was complaining, it was too hot for him. When I lived in Venezuela people would complain about the heat constantly. The borders that the Venezuelans have drawn around themselves confine them to a very hot part of the planet; and while people do accustom themselves to their climate, the easiest way to strike up a conversation with a Venezuelan is to mention el calor. This goes for anyone anywhere. In Brasília you can talk about how perfect the weather is. DC's extreme summers and winters make for lively small talk too. But enough about the weather, let's talk about where we are.
My rambling about the weather comes from my dwelling on our physical presence on the earth and I wonder how we got where we are. What frontiers have we crossed? How do the weather, the endemic plants or animals, the geography affect our lives? Who put us there? What moved us where?
My family moved to DC from Utah when I was three. My ancestors had come from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Scotland, Whales, Ireland and Germany. All of this blood met up, mixed, intermixed, ended up in Utah and produced me. Now I'm in Brazil.
What was the motivation? My ancestors left Europe in search of opportunities. Their faith moved them to Utah. Their industry moved my dad's ancestors from shepharding in the middle of the state to banking, up to Salt Lake City where my grandfather became a doctor. My dad followed his footsteps and became a doctor too. My mother's family lived in Sunset, Utah because her father was an entrepreneur and built a gas station. Her thirst for education took her to Salt Lake City where she met my father.
Dad's study of medicine moved the family to Boston where my brother and sister were born. His industry moved the family to San Francisco. Public security issues moved the family back to Salt Lake City. I was born, and my dad's continued hard work got him a job with Senator Hatch in Washington. The cosmopolitan capital city rubbed off on me, someone suggested that I apply for an internship with the Department of State, and now I'm in Brazil. On Friday, I was walking across a plaza littered with fallen mango leaves with an envelope to take to the 7th floor of the Foreign Ministry.
I was looking at the sky and my surroundings and wondering why? Why here? Brasília exists for a number of reasons. The idea of a centrally-situated capital named Brasília had existed since 1823, but it wasn't until the 50's that anything was done to create it. The cities of Salvador and Rio de Janeiro were quibbling over why either one was better suited to be the seat of the government, and it didn't look like the argument could be resolved without a fight. So, Sep 19, 1956, the Brazilian congress passes a bill to start construction of the new capital and a contest to determine the design of the city is started.
Oh yeah, back in 1883, an Italian saint named Don Bosco also had a dream describing where the city should be located. More history about the city can be found here.
The mid-20th Century vision of the future was replete with cars and airplanes, and Brasília ended up being a city shaped like an airplane that's organized for people to get around in cars. I had read this as I studied up on the city before coming down here. I'm a big fan of walking and I figured that I would be able to handle Brasília, I don't mind walking far. Well, it's not a walkable city at all. Cars have priority everywhere in the city. I finally admitted that the city isn't walkable last night when I realized that I'd have to take two buses, instead of one, to get to a party in the city.
So, that's why here, and that's why the city is weird.
Anyhow, I'm glad I'm here. The Homage to Going Somewhere Else isn't about going somewhere other than Brasília. It's about getting scattered all over the planet. It's about how people found their homes where they did. It's about how amazing it is that people leave, that people settle, that they'll learn about where they are and what they can or cannot do there. I like to travel, but I'm daunted by the great effort that it takes to pull up roots settle oneself somewhere else.
Anyway, I'm sitting at a computer in a house in a suburb south of lake Paranoá. I was just wondering how I got here. Now, I'm wondering where I'm going next.
Music: Broken Social Scene, You Forgot it in People