40 Miles (give or take) North of Cuba, heading toward Florida

6 December 2012

All my bags are packed; I’m ready to go.

Today was packing day for the ship. We all had to have all except carry-ons outside our cabins by 13:00 (1pm) today. Then the ship’s crew appeared and, within minutes, all suitcases, book boxes, satchels, and golf bags (at least one) disappeared. They’ll be somewhere in the Ft. Everglades passenger terminal tomorrow. Three years ago, that was the challenge: finding our luggage. Despite a color-coding system, bags and boxes end up in mis-colored piles, or, at least, that was the case in San Diego. From the time I stepped off the gangway, I spent an hour and a half searching, waiting for a porter’s help, clearing customs, and arranging shipment of books and supplies. I’m hoping—we’re all hoping—that won’t be the case tomorrow.

But back to the business at hand.

Dominica

Before this voyage, I had no idea where Dominica is. In fact, I’ve discovered, very few people do. And for good reason: it’s inaccessible.

Dominica is a 24-mile-long, volcanic island wedged between Martinique and Barbados in—what are they called?—the Lesser Antilles. Approaching the island from the sea, it looks like it’s been misplaced; it should be in the South Pacific, floating somewhere near Tahiti or Fiji. It’s a very lush place, overflowing with thick tropical greenery. And like those Pacific Islands, its terrain rises sharply out of the Caribbean up to pointed peaks over 4,000 feet above sea level.

Because those peaks do, indeed, rise sharply, very few spots exist on the island suitable for an airport. In fact, the only airport is at the opposite end from Roseau, the capital, an hour-and-a-half drive through the mountains. And that strip will support only commuter-size airplanes. So getting to Dominica requires at least 2 hops from mainland USA: one to Puerto Rico, the next via a commuter to the Dominica strip. The result is that, despite tremendous beauty, amazing floral diversity, a Caribbean climate, and superb snorkeling and diving, Dominica is a relatively quiet place except for the occasional cruise ships that arrive in the morning and leave at dinner time the same evening.

The MV Explorer is the only ship that comes and stays for more than a day.

Our stay in Dominica will forever be marked by the death of Casey Schulman. Many of the ship’s company would never consider returning to Dominica even if it were only 20 miles off the coast of Miami and served by an international airport. The memories are just too painful. But most would agree that it’s definitely a place worth adding to a list of the world’s beauty spots.

I had pre-arranged to spend our one night in Dominica at a place called Castle Comfort Dive Lodge, about 10 minutes south of Roseau, where the ship was docked. I chose Castle Comfort because it’s the home of Dive Dominica, which, according to Trip Advisor, is the #1 dive operation on the island. I hadn’t been scuba diving since 2007, my last trip to Hawaii, and I had brought along nothing for diving: no mask, no fins, and (most important) no certification card. But my friend Barry Reszel agreed to break into my house, rummage through my basement, find my card buried in a suitcase under the stairs, scan a copy, and e-mail it to me before our arrival in Dominica. That and rental equipment were all I needed.

I spent our arrival day, Saturday, sharing a tour of island sights with Rodney and Suzanne Huey and Linda Kobert, who managed the Writing Center on board. We visited Trafalgar Falls, a husband-and-wife pair of bridal-veil-like falls coming out of the mountains and splashing into large pools very suitable for swimming. We got as close to the falls as the terrain would allow, but the huge boulders forming a wall descending from the pools didn’t deter the many SAS students who had beaten us there. They were scrambling over the rocks—many in flip-flops!—to get to the base of the falls. The four of all commented that the spot, beautiful as it was, was an accident waiting to happen.

At about that same time, Casey was being pulled out of the water.

After the falls, our driver took us to a series of hot sulfur springs bubbling out of the ground. The island is volcanic, but it has experienced no eruptions at any time in recorded history because it is full of vents that release the underground pressure before it has a chance to explode. The vents appear as boiling hot—and I do mean “boiling”!—springs. Given time and inclination, we could have taken sulfur baths. We had neither.

The driver dropped me off at Castle Comfort before returning to the ship with the other three. I checked in, found my room, and went immediately to the waterside bar and dining area to enjoy the early evening looking out on the Caribbean.

Moored just off the dock of the hotel next door—another dive-and-lodging operation—was a catamaran with the word “Passion” painted on the side. It couldn’t have been more than about 30 feet long and looked to be large enough to carry 15 to 20 passengers comfortably on whale-watching and snorkeling excursions. I didn’t know it at the time (I found out later that evening when Shamim called) that “Passion” had been the craft that Casey and her friends had gone out on earlier that day. More than 50 kids had been on or around the catamaran when the accident happened.

I enjoyed a couple of rum punches and decent dinner on that patio while watching the sunset.

The next day, I joined 3 other divers and about 8 snorkelers on a half-day trip to close-in reefs. The dives were excellent, and the sites as pretty as any I’ve seen. The reefs surrounding Dominica are pristine, largely because they get much less traffic than the other Caribbean islands and because they’ve managed to control the lionfish.

Starting about 10 years ago—maybe a little longer—lionfish started invading Caribbean waters. Lionfish are very beautiful—in an ugly sort of way. They’re yellow-and-black striped with very large fins and tail. And their most notable characteristic is their large, colorful dorsal fin, which includes embedded spikes. These spikes are venomous. I don’t know that the venom from the puncture wound of a lionfish would be fatal to a human, but it would hurt like hell and leave the injured person feeling very bad for a day or two.

But what lionfish are doing to Caribbean reefs is much worse than what they might do to someone foolish enough to try to grab one. Lionfish are predators; they eat other reef fish. And they’re voracious. The result, according to Jake, a marine biologist who dove with us on Sunday, is that reef fish are disappearing at alarming rates. And because coral reefs are very delicate ecosystems where all life is interdependent, reefs are dying. Jake said that in some Caribbean spots “90% of the biodiversity has disappeared.”

The lionfish arrived by two methods: some were blown in from Africa with hurricanes. But most are being traced back to home aquarium owners tiring of their pet lionfish—perhaps because fish have the annoying habit of eating the other fish—and dumping them into rivers and oceans. The same thing is happening in the Everglades, which is losing wildlife to released pet anacondas.

But the Dominicans settled on a strategy to control lionfish. They spear them. Each dive master descends with a special spear designed to kill lionfish. It’s a small—maybe 18-inch-long—think pin, a little larger than a knitting needle. It’s mounted on a device with a rubber band, and the band provides the quickness and penetration to get through the lionfish’s strong skin. Result: we saw no lionfish on either of our two dives.

But we did see lots of colorful reef fish, a school of large jacks, several eels, an enormous turtle named “Sheila” that Jake had tagged a year ago, and beautifully colored corals and sponges. It was wonderful to get back underwater and inspired me to get back to Hawaii—or somewhere else warm and reefed—very soon.

Dominica is genuinely a diving Mecca. It’s probably a good thing that it’s so inaccessible.

Sunday night, back on the ship, we all gathered in the union for a memorial service honoring Casey. The service was beautifully put together, included very touching talks by several of Casey’s friends—most of whom had been on the catamaran when the accident happened—and a photo essay of her experiences over the past 3 months, a collection put together by our team of professional photographers. It was a very moving evening.

Ft. Lauderdale (not quite)

Tonight, we have our final pre-port briefing, preceded by two selections by the SAS choir, of which I am a member. I’ll say no more. Not a gig I’ll be adding to my professional vita any time soon.

Tomorrow, it’s over. I’ll probably have a few more words to say, but not until I’ve done a little decompressing. For now, I’m looking forward very much to putting a dent in my couch, exercising my channel-changing thumb, and sleeping in a bed that doesn’t move.

12 Miles (or so) North of Cuba

6 December 2012

After an especially rough, mostly sleepless night Monday, with glasses falling off shelves and wine bottles tipping, the captain decided to divert from the planned course and seek calmer waters. When we passed the east coast of Puerto Rico, instead of continuing on a northwesterly course straight for Ft. Lauderdale, we made a sharp left, paralleling, first, the Puerto Rican coast then the coast of Hispanola: the Domincan Republic and Haiti. Since yesterday, we’ve been skimming along the north coast of Cuba, often well within sight of the island’s eastern mountains, but, I assume, outside the 12-mile buffer zone that is recognized as national waters. If we weren’t outside that zone, I’m guessing we’d have met a greeting party; we may even have met Fidel. But so far, no interception by Cuban authorities.

To the north, I can see some large buildups, so I’m sure we’re avoiding storms between us and the Bahamas—the straight-line course to port. We’re all grateful. The waters for the past couple of days have been fairly calm—maybe 2-foot swells at worst—and the weather has been generally sunny and warm. I’m savoring these last few days of my extended summer, spending as much time as possible on my small balcony, which is where I am now.

All papers are graded, all final exams are done, semester grades went in to UVA yesterday, and I’m packed. Now, our final full day on board is a good time to catch up on this blog. And I have some time to cover. I’ll try to be brief.

Manaus and the Amazon

We arrived in Manaus, Brazil, on Thanksgiving Day, the morning after our onboard celebration of the holiday. Ambassador Thomas Shannon, US ambassador to Brazil, had joined us in Macapa, where we first entered the Amazon. And he and his party sat at the head table for Thanksgiving dinner Wednesday evening.

Three years ago, our MV Explorer Thanksgiving dinner consisted of turkey roll, mashed potatoes, and the usual: steamed vegetables, pasta, iceberg lettuce, under-ripe tomatoes, and rolls. No gravy! No stuffing! So my expectations weren’t high. But having a VIP on board does make a difference, and this Thanksgiving dinner included stuffing and gravy. No mashed potatoes, but with stuffing, who cares? It wasn’t exactly like home, but it was, to a certain extent, a family gathering.

I spent Thanksgiving Day morning walking around the port area of Manaus. The city sits on the north bank of the Rio Negra just west of where the Negra joins the Amazon. As the name implies, the Rio Negra’s water is very dark—black, in fact. The color comes from the tannins floating downstream from the millions of acres of rainforest that line the river from its origin in the Andes to the point where it joins the Amazon. The color may not be inviting, but mosquitoes can’t lay eggs in the high-acidic water. So bugs weren’t a problem in Manaus.

The other notable characteristic of the Rio Negra is what happens when its black water joins the brown, muddy water of the Amazon. At this “meeting of the waters,” the two rivers flow along, side-by-side, as if getting acquainted before taking the full plunge into union. The result is a line in the water, an invisible wall that separates brown from black for several miles downstream. The new river is genuinely two-toned, just like those two-toned cars my parents used to drive in the 50s and 60s. It’s a very interesting phenomenon to see.

I joined Jim and Shamim for lunch at a Manaus seafood restaurant, where we shared a terrific meal of Amazon fish and Brazilian beers. After lunch, I returned to the ship, packed a few items, and caught a taxi to Manaus’s #1-rated hotel: The Holiday Inn. The fact the Holiday Inn—it looks exactly like a Holiday Inn you’d find in Des Moines or Davenport—is the top-rated place to stay says a lot about hotel selection in Manaus. But I was there for the internet. Thanksgiving was daughter Julie’s 40^th birthday, and I hoped a good internet connection would allow me to call her—Skype, even—as she celebrated both auspicious days with family at brother Marty’s house in Henderson NV. Unfortunately, the Skype call didn’t go through—maybe the sound of glasses clinking drowned out the ringing of Skype—but at least I was able to leave a musical message.

I did manage to get through to youngest-daughter Corey via Skype, so all wasn’t lost.

Thursday night, I joined a large group from the ship at a concert performance by the Amazonia Philharmonic, the local professional symphony orchestra. I didn’t have high expectations. How can they attract high-quality musicians to the heart of the hot, muggy, buggy Amazon? Well, as I discovered, it’s not as buggy as expected, and the Amazonia Philharmonic is excellent.

The concert was performed in Manaus’s 100-year-old opera house, a beautiful, classic performance venue with 6 to 7 layers of gilded balconies enclosing the main seating area, and a magnificent, classical mural encircling a massive crystal chandelier hanging overhead. The concert fit the venue: three pieces by Brazilian composers, including a wonderful Villa-Lobos piano concerto (yes, performed on a Steinway concert grand) and two other very entertaining selections by composers I hadn’t heard of. All this for the not-so-grand price of US$10 . . . for a reserved orchestra-level seat. And, once again, Ambassador Shannon joined us, so it had some of the trappings of a royal performance.

The orchestra is, as I said, excellent: superb strings, decent winds (though I’ve been spoiled by the Chicago Symphony’s incredible, majestic brass section), and a fine young conductor. A great evening.

The next day, I returned to the ship early and joined Jim, Shamim, and Kay Slaughter for a 2-day venture into the rain forest. This trip, again, was set up by colleague Sergio Carvalho, the Brazilian professor of international business at the University of Manitoba. A friend of Sergio, Maia, a youngish fellow who has parleyed his knowledge of the region into a thriving tourist business, picked us up at the ship and drove us to a small port close to the junction of the Negra and the Amazon. There, we climbed aboard a high-speed boat and sped across the river junction—stopping long enough for photos of the two-toned stream—before continuing south to a busy landing on the south bank of the Amazon. From there, we piled into a van, joined by a young Dutch couple, and rode about an hour along paved and unpaved roads until arriving at a jungle port on a main Amazon tributary whose name I never learned.

We boarded another high speed boat and, for the next 45 minutes, we sped up the tributary, cut through a large lake, entered a small black-water stream, and penetrated deeper and deeper into the rain forest, with the river gradually becoming narrower, the bends more pronounced, and the forest closing in on us. We were in a Joseph Conrad novel.

Finally, we rounded a bend and saw, perched on a peninsula formed by what was now a narrow, dark stream, a thatched-roof structure flanked by smaller cottages sitting high on the bluff above the water. This was the Amazon Turtle Lodge, owned by Sergio’s friend, Maia.

We were greeted by lodge staff, who offered us some excellent tropical punch, then we trudged up the 60-or-so stairs to the lodge area. The compound’s structures, like most houses along the Amazon rivers, sit on bluffs. In addition, most houses closer to the water are constructed on stilts. During the dry season—generally our fall and winter—the rivers drain, levels fall, and great rivers and lakes become small streams and ponds. But in the wet season—generally our summer—the torrential rains cause the entire Amazon basin to fill, with water rising as much as 20 meters. That’s about 70 feet of vertical water, enough to cover an 8-story building. So the Amazon Turtle Lodge in late November sits atop a 60-foot bluff overlooking a small winding stream. In July, the compound sits on the water’s edge surrounded by more lake than river. The dock where we enjoyed our tropical punch rises and falls on huge floating logs, like a fisherman’s bobber.

We spent the next 24 hours on several boat and hiking trips through the Amazon rain forest. Saw lots of birds—lots and lots of birds: tucans, hawks, parakeets (yes, wild parakeets), egrets, on and on. Kay Slaughter is a birder, so we had an expert along who could help out our guide. It was like being in the bird house at the National Zoo. But no cages. We also saw dolphins feeding at another stream-river intersection (fresh-water dolphins evolved from some lost Pacific-ocean dolphins a couple million years ago); several caymans, which are small alligators that can grow as long as 15 to 20 feet, according to our guide; poisonous tree frogs, termite mounds, and lots of tropical flora that, according to our guide, can cure everything from the common cold to Montezuma’s revenge.

Several students on a different trip into the rain forest enjoyed swimming in the rivers, eating the local vegetation, and drinking the Amazon water. They later could have used some of those jungle remedies.

The sleeping accommodations at the lodge were very comfortable, including, to our great surprise, air conditioning. That was a very good thing because our most vivid memory of the Amazon will be the heat and humidity. It was Mississippi in late July. Except, according to locals, the heat and humidity are present year-‘round.

We returned to Manaus by 4:30 (16:30) Saturday afternoon and sailed that evening at 20:00 (8pm). It seemed to take longer to sail down the Amazon than it had a week earlier to sail the 900 miles against the current, perhaps because the river looks exactly the same the entire stretch, whether coming or going. But we finally exited the river Tuesday morning and by later that afternoon were back in the deep-blue waters of the tropical Atlantic.

To have sailed up the Amazon, ventured into the world’s largest rain forest, listened to the constant cacophony of tropical birds, hiked through the jungle, and watched a sunrise over the black waters of a hidden stream was a wonderful experience. But I’m not ready yet to book a return flight.

West of Guadeloupe, the Eastern Caribbean

3 December 2012

We lost a student Saturday. Casey Schulman, a 22-year-old senior at the University of Virginia, was snorkeling and swimming with friends off a catamaran just a few miles from Roseau, Dominica, where the MV Explorer had docked that morning.

 A catamaran is a boat with two hulls—two “bodies”—that serve almost like skis, allowing the boat to skim along the water with less resistance than a single-hulled boat.

This catamaran, named “The Passion,” is a sail boat, a very simple design: a flat platform connecting the two hulls; a single mast extending up from the platform; and hanging down from the center, at the aft end of the platform, a small prop to drive the catamaran forward when docking or when the wind is too light to do the job.

Casey was sucked into that rotating prop. Details of how or why she was between the hulls and close to the prop with the boat’s engine running are mixed, but that’s where she was. She was gravely injured. Friends pulled her out of the water, and the boat rushed to a nearby dock. An ambulance was waiting and took her to a Roseau hospital, but not in time. Though some of those who were on the catamaran claim that Casey was conscious when she was pulled from the water, the doctor at the hospital said Casey’s injuries were so grave that she probably hadn’t survived the initial impact with the rotating prop.

The entire ship’s community is in mourning. Even though many, myself included, didn’t know Casey personally, when you spend over three months together on what is truly a small, floating village, you recognize everyone and feel connected to everyone. When a seat is open at a dinner table, you join the group. The connection is easy: we’re all part of a grand shared experience.

And Casey was one of those who stood out. She was always smiling, always engaged with others, always animated. And she radiated maturity and intelligence. These were qualities that those who knew her well verified during last night’s memorial service in the union.

Several of my students were among Casey’s closest friends, including a young man, Jack Delehey, from Vanderbilit University, who had a special relationship with her. Jack spoke at the service, describing Casey’s sense of humor, her caring nature, her positive attitude, her warmth. He had us all laughing and crying, especially when he told how his grandfather and Casey’s father had met when they traveled to Halifax in August to see the ship off. Jack’s grandfather pulled Jack aside before the ship sailed and said to him, “Get to know this Casey Schulman. You can tell a lot about someone when you meet the people she came from. This girl has excellent genes. And if she takes after her mother, that’s a bonus!”

You can also tell a lot about someone when you know the people she hangs around with, and students in my classes who were close to Casey—including Jack Delehey—are among my brightest, most mature. They seem to know how to have fun, when to have fun, and how and when to get serious. Based on her friends, Casey was a special person.

Of course, as the father of a 22-year-ol college senior myself, I sympathize especially with Casey’s parents. They were undoubtedly looking forward to welcoming her home on Friday, perhaps even planning to meet the ship as we arrive in Ft. Lauderdale early Friday morning. Now, of course, her homecoming will be very different. I can’t imagine—I don’t even want to imagine—what pain they’re going through.

I’m way behind on this blog, but I’ll eventually catch up. For now, we’re in the final days, and I’m facing a stack of papers and final exams to grade, with a looming Wednesday deadline for submitting final grades to UVA. And, of course, there’s packing.

But, for now, it all seems very small.

The Amazon River, 200 Miles Upstream from the Atlantic

21 November 2012
(The day before Thanksgiving)

When I remember the Amazon years from now (assuming I’ll be able to remember anything), what will come to me most strongly is the smell of smoke. It’s the smell I woke up to yesterday morning as we approached our anchorage off Makapa, Brazil, at the Amazon’s mouth. It was the smell outside the 6^th-deck garden lounge as I ate lunch (tacos!). It was the smell forward on the 7^th deck as we watched the sunset last night. And it’s the smell—especially strong today—as I sit out here on my small balcony getting ready to grade the remaining cover letters and resumes from my business communication students.

And, of course, there’s the constant haze that accompanies the smoke. Without the haze and smoke, the Amazon is very much like the Saigon River we sailed up three years ago enroute to Ho Chi Minh City and my adventures in Vietnam during the fall ’09 voyage. The muddy water—orange-brown, looking like thin gruel—is lined on both sides by triple-canopy jungle. Occasionally, a small house surrounded by a miniature cultivated field, appears on the bank. Every now and then, a covered ferry—more like a large rowboat with a canopy—sails by taking people to the nearest village, I guess, for shopping, doctor visits, or to see family and friends. Occasionally we pass a dugout, a small outboard motor at the stern, carrying one or two fishermen. And this morning, we sailed past a very picturesque village sitting, like one block of a main street shopping strip, directly on the north bank of the river.

But the river is very wide, varying, I’d guess, from a little over a mile at its narrowest to well over 3 miles at its widest. The channel we are following weaves from one side of the river to the other, so at times when the ship is sailing close to the north bank, putting the starboard side close to shore, I can see the faces of people walking to their boats or down to the river’s bank to wash clothes or, I guess, to get water for cooking. At other times, when we move closer to the south bank, my balcony is well over a mile from shore, as it is now. Because of the smoke, all I can make out on the north bank is a strip of green outlining the river’s muddy water.

Yesterday morning, I figured the smoke was coming from sugar cane farmers burning the dried stalks to prepare their fields for the next planting. But according to several people who have been up the Amazon before, the smoke originates from burning forest. Fire is what the people here use to clear large tracts for cultivation. In the US, clear cutting is the preferred method; in the Amazon, it’s fire. The result is that a sail up the Amazon is an experience in a cloud chamber. Today is hot, muggy, and cloudless. Even with the heavy air, I should be able to see 8 to 10 miles clearly. Because of the smoke, my view to the stern ends in thick haze no more than 3 miles downstream.

Sergio Carvalho told us that Brazilians resent very much people from other countries lecturing them on the need to preserve the Amazon forest. It is, after all, the world’s oxygen tank. And when the lectures come from US environmentalists, they’re especially resentful. “You’re the only country who didn’t sign the Kyoto protocols, and you lecture us on carbon pollution and environmental destruction?!” But it’s impossible not to be concerned when, for hundreds of miles along the Amazon rain forest, the senses are exposed to acrid smoke and thick haze.

At the same time, I can’t stop staring at the brown water, the tiny boats, the thick jungle, the huts, the villages, and (when I can see them) the faces. This experience was worth waiting for.

We arrive in Manaus tomorrow morning. Other than a reservation for one night at a Holiday Inn (it’s all about location and the internet), I have no plans.  I think Sergio’s contacts have finally been exhausted.

50 miles North of Belem, Brazil, Approaching the Amazon’s Mouth

19 November 2012

When I finished my 30 minutes on the treadmill this morning at 6:45, I walked back toward the bow along the port-side deck. The water was still the deep blue that is characteristic of the oceans, especially in sunlight. And the flying fish were scattering in waves away from the oncoming ship. Now I’m back on my balcony 2 hours later, and the water is aquamarine and quiet. The flying fish are gone. The boobies are gone. Even most of the whitecaps are gone. We’re in the Amazon’s outflow.

According to my National Geographic map of the Atlantic, the outflow from the Amazon River “freshens the Atlantic’s waters 100 miles offshore.” I didn’t expect the change to be so dramatic or so noticeable. But it now looks like we’re sailing over a vast sandbar. And no land in sight. I’m guessing we’ll start seeing some signs of civilization this afternoon as we pass a few of the islands that sit in the river’s mouth. But the actual opening to the Amazon is over 50 miles wide, so it will still seem like we’re at sea, passing by some island outposts. Only when we get to anchor at Macapa, where we pick up the US Ambassador, will it start feeling like a river . . . I guess. We’ll see.

Rio de Janeiro

We arrived in Rio the morning of 11 November, passing the beaches—Ipanema and Copacabana—around 06:30. I wanted to see the arrival (I never get tired of watching a new destination slide by as we approach our dock), especially because those who have been to Rio before said that arriving by sea rivals the arrival into Cape Town or Sydney. It was a clear morning, the sun just starting to rise, as I walked back toward the main dining room. I decided to take a quick look outside on the 6^th-deck portside viewing area, and I walked out just in time to see Sugarloaf go slowly past. It was still too dark to see the Christo statue in the distance. I can’t say that a Rio arrival is more dramatic than a Cape Town arrival, but it certainly is now a part of my mental scrapbook: sights to remember.

I visited Rio about 20 years ago when Steve Ramsey and I went there to conduct some focus groups for Dow Chemical. My memories were of the armed guard Dow insisted accompany us whenever we left the hotel; of the favelas—vast slums of temporary, squatter homes—filling the sides of mountains that surround the city; and of the caipiringhas—surely the world’s greatest mixed drink—that Steve and I enjoyed poolside at our hotel on Ipanema Beach as we tried to record our notes from the morning’s work.  Part of my memory is also listening to Lisa VanderPas, my assistant, laughing as she tried to decipher my slurred focus group notes. “What in hell were you guys drinking?!”

(A lone boobie is back, circling the starboard side of the ship looking for flying fish. Sorry, fella. Your breakfast stayed in the salty stuff.)

After my adventures in Buenos Aires and, especially, Iguaçu, I hadn’t made definite plans for Rio. In fact, I was staring at a virtual pile of formal reports that came in from my business comm. students on the 10^th, so I knew I’d have to spend some time in port grading the 8- to 12-page reports. The students needed them turned around in order to prepare for their final briefings, coming up next. And on the 3^rd day in Rio, I had a field lab scheduled. So I viewed our stay in Rio as more a chance to catch up on work than as a chance for yet more adventure.

Barry Hollar, professor of religion at Shenandoah University in the Blue Ridge Mountains, had set up an independent trip for a small group to visit a Candomble ceremony, a ritual based on African tribal religions that has been kept alive by descendents of the more than 6 million Africans brought to Brazil as slaves between 1500 and 1880. The trip sounded interesting, so I signed up.

After Brazilian customs cleared the ship, I met our group of 12 at the entrance to the port terminal and boarded a van for the drive to the ceremony. Candomble  is an animist religion (I think I have that right). In other words, it centers around nature: the air, the water, the sun, the earth, each (and others) represented by a god. When a practitioner believes he/she is ready to become one with a god (a state that takes time and years of work—sort of like earning a merit badge), she asks for a ceremony where the unification takes place. That’s what we witnessed.

The “church”—a clean, white building that serves as a community center and place of worship—was in a favela north of the city about 45 minutes. We had an interesting tour, in fact, as neither the driver nor our guide was exactly sure where the gathering would take place. But we finally found the place. We entered through a courtyard, where a member of the congregation was selling souvenirs of the ceremony, and were escorted into a large, square room filled with congregants sitting in pews around an open center area. In the middle of the open area stood a post about 18 inches in diameter extending from the floor to the ceiling about 12 feet above. The post was decorated with paintings, fabric of brightly colored cloth, and symbols representing, I guess, the various gods. Clearly, this is the altar.

We sat in the back two rows of pews on the left side of the entry. Across the room, facing us, was a group of musicians playing various percussion instruments—drums, bells, etc—and chanting an African song that repeated the same musical phrase over and over. To the beat of the drums, two circles of celebrants danced slowly around the pole, an inner circle of about 8 or 9 women, and an outer circle of 20 to 25 men and women. The inner circle moved clockwise, the outer circle, counterclockwise. The women were dressed, despite the 90-degree-plus, humid temperature, in several layers of cotton formal wear. Their tops were white, all with a wide sash tied into a bow below their chests. The bottoms were large hoop skirts of various bright colors. And they all wore head-dressings of some sort, mostly small turban-like wraps. The few men in the outer circle were dressed much more comfortably but, clearly, in ceremonial costumes of white or brightly colored tops and loose-fitting pants.

Around and around the pole the groups went for many minutes, chanting with the band, taking ritualistic dance steps, their hands and arms swaying in prescribed patterns back and forth as they moved slowly around the pole. Every few minutes—usually each chant would run at least 10 and as many as 20 minutes—the drumming would stop, the circles would raise their arms in some sort of cheer, the people would wipe the pouring sweat off their faces (no air conditioning in the room), then a cantor would sing the next song’s chant, and the procession would begin again.

This went on for about an hour. Then, suddenly, a woman who had been moving with the inner circle went into what I can only describe as an epileptic-like fit, shaking, eyes rolled back, bent over as if ready to collapse. This, it turns out, was the new inductee. Others in the inner circle rushed to support her as she stood in the middle shaking, arms flailing. Then, as the shaking started to subside, one of the others took the inductee’s sash, which had to that time been tied into a bow at her back, and moved the bow to her front. This, apparently, was the sign that she had now become one with the god.

But that wasn’t the end. The chanting, the moving in clrcles, the stopping and starting, even, to an extent, the occasional “possessions,” continued for the next 45 minutes, when our group decided we’d gotten the gist of the ceremony and headed back to the van. According to our guide, the full ceremony can last as long as 8 hours—until the inductee has been fully inhabited, I guess. He also told us that, in Africa, the ceremony has gone through many changes over the past 4 centuries. But in Brazil, the descendents of the kidnapped Africans retained the original moves, songs, and ceremony elements. It’s a way to maintain one of the links to their heritage.

The other interesting characteristic of the ceremony was that, while most of the celebrants were black, many were brown and even white. That mix reflects the intermixing of the races that has characterized the Brazilian culture over the years. When the Portuguese first came to Brazil and began importing slaves to work the early sugar fields, the Portuguese had left their wives and families at home in Portugal. So intermixing of the races began early. The result is that, today, Brazil experiences far less racism than we do in the US, where slavery began on family-owned plantations. Of course, the US still saw some intermixing, but not nearly to the extent that occurred in Brazil. Today, Brazilians don’t think “races” because the races have become so homogenized. They do think “color,” though. And most of the faces in the poorer neighborhoods of Rio, especially in the favelas, are dark.

We spent the rest of the day having a long lunch and touring a different favela in an area closer to the centro district. Rio has begun a process of what they call “pacification” of the favelas. That means they’ve hired and trained hundreds of new police, who, favela by favela, are entering the neighborhoods, driving out the thriving drug trade, and establishing a very strong presence of flak-vest-attired security guards. Of course, all this is in preparation for the World Cup in 2014 and the Rio Olympics in 2016. They have a long way to go.

On the other hand, the favelas of Rio de Janeiro—at least the ones we were able to visit—certainly have a more permanent, fixed feel than do the townships of South Africa or the poor neighborhoods of Ghana—ironic because, legally, the inhabitants of favelas are all squatters, with no legal property rights. So the government of Rio is spending millions of dollars to pacify, sanitize, electrify, and generally clean up huge neighborhoods that, technically, don’t exist.

After I got back to the ship, I took a quick shower, grabbed a cab, and went across the city to Ipanena, where I joined Jim and Shamim at a restaurant for some feijoada (fezsh-WAH-dah) and a couple of caipiringhas. Feijoada is a Brazilian dish of pork sausage, ribs, and black beans, all cooked together in a casserole and supplemented by various greens, rice, and other side dishes. Delicious!

We took a short walk down Ipanema beach before cabbing back to the ship.

The next day, 12 November, as promised, I spent most of the day in my cabin grading formal reports. Some were very good; some weren’t. I had formed the class into teams and told them they work for a fictitious multi-national company that owns up-scale sandwich shops. The company is considering expanding into one of the countries we’ve visited on the voyage, and the class, working in teams of 3 to 4, were to write reports either supporting or discouraging the expansion. The reports had to be written individually, but they could collaborate on research, organization, even tables and figures in their reports. As expected, the teams that worked together well did the best jobs on their reports; the dysfunctional teams produced weaker reports.

It was a long day, interrupted only by a walk into the city to grab lunch at a sandwich restaurant and to buy a bottle of cashaca, the liquor made from sugarcane that is the not-so-secret ingredient of caipiringhas.

That night, I joined a large group of faculty and staff at Porcao, a well-known Rio restaurant that serves the traditional, all-meat, carved-from-a-spear-at-your-table feast. The dinner was put together by Sergio Carvalho, Brazilian native and professor of business at the University of Manitoba. I hadn’t eaten at a Fogo de Chao in the US (there’s one just off north Michigan Ave in Chicago), so I wasn’t sure what to expect.

The beef was certainly among the best I’ve tasted. And it kept coming and coming, washed down with caipiringhas and red wine. I’m sure my arteries were cracking from the massive infusion of cholesterol. But wow! It was delicious.

On our third and final day in Rio, suffering from a severe meat-and-caipiringha (mostly meat) hangover--I escorted my business communication class on a field lab, that port experience required for each course and, supposedly, tied to the course content. I had been trying since last December to set up a field lab in Rio de Janeiro. I started by trying for a trip to the Embraer aircraft factory east of Sao Paulo. But after several months of back-and-forth communication, both with the Brazil HQ as well as their Ft Lauderdale US office, I abandoned that idea when I realized they weren’t going to fly one of their planes to Rio to pick up and return the class. Besides, my principal contact at Embraer was fired in the middle of the process.

Next, I tried to arrange a day-long visit to the Rio Olympic Committee, figuring their work would be interesting to learn about, could include a tour of projected venue sites, and would be an opportunity to learn about cross-cultural business comm. challenges. But, again after a month or so, I learned through a travel agent that the Olympic committee wasn’t yet hosting visits. So I went through three other possibilities: the World Cup organizing committee, the “Flamingo” football (soccer) team, the Brahma Brewery (a particular favorite idea of the students). All either didn’t reply to my requests or were “not yet” or “no longer” hosting visits. By 2 days before we arrived in Rio, I still didn’t have a field lab set up.

Then Sergio Carvalho came to the rescue. Sergio overheard my story while standing next to me at the bar in the faculty-staff lounge. And he diagnosed the problem immediately: I didn’t know anybody. (I guess the same applies to SAS and to the Brazilian travel agent SAS works through, because they had had no luck either.) Sergio reminded me that in Brazil, a very collectivist, close-knit culture, where personal relationships are everything, to get anything done requires knowing “someone,” meaning a person with influence. The next day, Sergio and I were on the phone from the dean’s office, calling acquaintances of Sergio. By the afternoon of 9 November, he had arranged a morning visit to the world HQ of H.Stern, the jewelry manufacturer; lunch with his own class and a presentation by the Canadian trade representative to Brazil; and an afternoon visit to the state bureau of tourism.

And that’s how to get things done in Brazil!

The day of the field lab was rainy and dull, a good day to spend listening to presentations on making jewelry and on infrastructure improvements planned for Rio before the 2014 World Cup. We also toured a cathedral in the centro section, a very modern, pyramid-shaped structure, ugly from the outside, magnificent inside. Though the Brazilian population is growing increasingly secular, according to our guide, they still love their churches and still call themselves (mostly) Catholic. It wasn’t an exciting day, and it was certainly not what I had envisioned. But we filled the field-lab square, and it was all because of Sergio’s relationships.

We sailed out of Rio’s harbor the night of the 13^th under rainy skies. But the skies cleared just long enough for a final sighting of Sugarloaf, the beaches, and the Christo.

For Manaus, I’m again calling on Sergio, who offered to try to set up an overnight at a jungle lodge for me and a few others. Hope that comes through. And we’re also planning a night at a concert by the Amazonian Philharmonic Thursday (Thanksgiving) evening. But top priority is finding a hotel with good internet so I can wish daughter Julie a happy 40^th birthday via Skype. I know she’ll need consoling.

How does she think it feels to have a 40-year-old daughter?!

The water has morphed from aquamarine to green to tan in the 5 hours it’s taken me to write this entry. We’re now truly at the mouth of the Amazon. And I still can’t see land.