An Absent Bossanova

More of this to come.

It’s turning out that naming this website the way I did is going to allow me all sorts of plays on the name (see title of today’s entry).

Anyway, the sea shown in the pic above is somewhere in Buzios, but I imagine it looks something like the sea I’m going to be seeing for the next week and a half or so while I’m in Malta with some old friends. So this site is probably going to lay fallow for a bit. If you keep coming here and reading this same entry over and over again, I recommend you poke around the Gentle of Contents and read old entries and leave comments. Or, there’s A Secret Bossanova to be found if you figure out how to spell the word sweat in portuguese and add it to this site’s address.

Look forward to all sorts of awesome stuff in August. I’m returning to Rio to work for a few more weeks. August is slated to be full of visits to CDI’s schools, so I should get some great pics from that. Also, today I went to lunch with my colleagues Juliana and Débora (who will also have A Gentle Entry devoted to them in August) at the Fluminense futebol club headquarters. I kicked myself for not bringing my camera today because:

1. The clubhouse was full of great photo ops (wait ’til you see their bathroom signs!)
2. On the way there we passed a coconut cart called Coco Loco with a logo featuring a smiling, lobotomized coconut head (they machete the tops off to drink the coconut water within).

But chill out, I’m going to get those pics in AUGUST. I’ll be back on the 11th. Look forward to a massive amount of pictures. Also, I might find a way to update this thing from over there, but probably sans photos. It’ll be A Textual Bossanova.

Oh, another place I forgot to take my camera was to last night (this is experimental writing, not typos). First, Lauren (best roommate ever.) made a staggeringly good puttanesca and we had a goodbye dinner for Carolina, Kate, Katie and (the other) Jed. They caught a flight to Salvador after dinner, and the three girls will head back to the states before I get back from Malta. So that was a farewell for me. After dinner, I made my second visit to dub night at Casa da Matriz with Peter, a sociology PhD candidate from Berkeley (UC school solidarity at its best!). I’m telling you, dub night is the best. The very best. Also, they played “Duppy Conqueror” by Bob (Marley).

Sing along:

Yes me friend, me friend,
‘dem set me free again.
Yes me friend, me friend,
we deh ‘pon street again

The bars could not hold me!
Force could not control me, no!
They tried to keep me down!
But God put me around.

Yes, I’ve been accused,
and wrongly abused now.
But through the powers of the most high,
they’ve got to turn me loose.

Don’t try to cut me off on this bridge now.
I’ve got to reach Mount Zion!
If you are bullbucka, let me tell you that,
I’m a duppy conqueror, conqueror!

Song info here.