~ sea-ville ~

28 February 2007

proxy woes & ILS successes

It is 68 degrees today. I know I keep talking about how beautiful it is … wind blowing … blue blue water all around us … no humidity … but I feel the need to mention it yet again … We crossed the prime meridian (0 degrees longitude) last night, sometime around 2:30 AM. I wasn’t up for the event. We’re currently at 32 degrees, 28 minutes latitude; .05 degrees, 48 minutes longitude, moving at a speed of 18.2 knots. All according to my cabin television which provides this info. to me moment-by-moment.

The Archbishop spoke at Global Studies this morning. It was very rah-rah: yay for students who can change the world; yay for students who boycotted for company disinvestment from South Africa back in the 80s & 90s (which we did at Mount Holyoke, we boycotted Coca-Cola & the College purchased only Pepsi products), yay for the work that students are doing now for the causes of poverty and racial inequality. But, I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t more substance in his speech today -- either about his personal experiences or about the state of the country now in 2006. He talked a bit about the Truth & Reconciliation Commission and how South Africa was able to keep from having a bloodbath with the transfer of power, but he didn’t talk in any great personal detail. I wanted more … of him … somehow … (and I realize that’s awfully selfish on my part), rather than rah-rah for the students. But, of course, he was primarily talking to the students and that’s obviously what he felt they needed to hear. He spoke for an hour without notes and he’s funny and he laughs at himself and he’s very hard not to adore. Tomorrow will be a Q & A. I hope the students ask good questions.

Mixed library news today. Last night, Mark at ITC fixed my Connexion-connection problem through the proxy server. Last night, that was lovely & I was very happy. Today, we couldn’t access the proxy server at all -- from anywhere. I’m not quite sure what’s up. I reported it early this morning, but we’re 6 hours ahead of EST time and I haven’t heard anything back yet. I had some leads from Erika’s experience which I’ve also passed along in my email. Lots of frustrated students, so I’m hoping we can resolve this ASAP. The faculty, however, have all been super. It’s all about the F-word (flexibility), say the deans, and so today was a good example of this. We told the students we’d talk to the faculty and that’s probably the coolest part about being together on the ship. Word spreads pretty effortlessly (which I appreciate has its downsides too!).

But then much progress in other areas. Sherri has put together a great Powerpoint for basic research skills & proxy server help, which we're currently testing out on our workstudy students, she taught 2 classes yesterday, and she's working on collection development recommendations on race & racism. We also spent some time today talking about promotion & rank at UVA & UCSB. It's interesting how different they are. UCSB has no affiliate rank, assistant is their lowest. And they have 3-year review cycles, with steps inside each rank. Each review cycle sounds considerably more intense than our 1-year reviews, but going from rank-to-rank isn't then as dramatic (unlike our promotion process).

I loaded all the patron records into the new ILS yesterday and all the bibliographic records today. I’ve got a handful of errors to clean up manually, but all in all pretty clean. I should define "clean" as what was in Winnebago is now in Destiny and we didn’t lose any itemtypes or patron information. What says Reference in Winnebago says Reference in Destiny, etc. As mentioned in previous posts, much of the data could still stand for further massaging. We’ve set up all the policies, we’ve customized the homepage. We’re pretty much ready to go. I’m waiting on Kenny, the crew IT manager, to adjust his alias for us. He created an alias so that users can just type "library" in their browser bar & have us come up. (How cool would that be if we did that on our home campuses???) But we changed the location of the page we are using at start-up and so I need him to fix his alias. Tomorrow, we’ll run a report from Winnebago looking for all the checked-out items and have the workstudy students check them out in Destiny. And then I think we are ready to switch. There are still things we need to set up (Z39.50 for OCLC), futzing with permissions, Destiny has a “categories” feature that we think will be useful for reserves, etc. Those will come as we learn more. But, we can check books out now and check them in again and renew them, we can edit item records and bibliographic records, staff can log in for staff functions from machines other than the single computer at the front desk, users can look up materials from their own laptops, and we've given users an easier path to the UVA databases (when the proxy server is working, that is ...) and all that is all good. And, we've officially christened the system Explorer (rather than calling it Destiny). The rest will come …

… and all this without the need for one single committee … how cool is that???

27 February 2007

a lesson in privilege

we are currently participating in an apartheid simulation. After Global Studies today, as we move closer to South Africa, they divided the shipboard community into a privileged class and an unprivileged class. Those who shaved their heads or cut their hair into mohawks for Neptune Day are in the privileged class. The unprivileged class is not allowed in the 6th floor dining hall, which many of us much prefer to the 5th deck, we are not allowed on the pool deck, and we are not allowed in the faculty/staff lounge, except for the faculty/staff who shaved their heads. Students with shaved heads were (for part of the day) allowed in there which they otherwise never are. The unprivileged class is not allowed to use the public restrooms and must go back to our cabins. The privileged class gets priority in line down at the field office, student life, and the purser’s desk as well as priority use of all the ship’s computer workstations. This will continue until after Global Studies tomorrow (24 hours), when Desmond Tutu will speak.

It’s been interesting. For one thing, I’m a little bit in the netherworld. Those people who I know and who knew that I cut my hair keep commenting that maybe I should be included in the privileged class. But, of course, I can’t get past any of the "hall monitors" … "police" … "enforcers" ... who are making sure everybody abides by the rules. I don’t pass, and of course people of mixed-race were also a huge part of the puzzle in apartheid and other racist regimes.

On the one hand, it seems that the privileged class was feeling the experience more than the unprivileged. People have been pretty nasty to them all day and there was one woman in the library who looked to be nearly in tears. For the unprivileged class, it’s been a little too much of a game. I snuck into a public ladies’ room at one point, we held a protest outside the 6th desk dining hall tonight. Chanting "end apartheid now" and "freedom now". Folks held up signs and blocked the entrance so that the privileged had to climb over us to get to dinner. There were about 10 faculty/staff and several dozen students. Some shaved-headed students climbed over us. Everyone booed at them. Others turned around. Noticeably, none of them joined the protest. I was proud that the library was well represented. Sherri & I were both there and two of our workstudy students.

But, then the crew member in charge of the dining hall came out and the students starting chanting "taco-day … taco-day" (the day tacos are served for lunch is the best day on the ship!) and they starting laughing and things went quickly downhill from there. Learning to protest and learning that protesting is part of a democratic movement is all well and good, but there were no consequences here. No one was getting arrested or beaten for daring to protest (or sneaking into a public ladies room) so it’s hard to know whether the students really absorbed the point of the simulation. The privileged students who climbed over us while we heckled them definitely felt some impact. The students protesting, again, it felt more like a game without any real risk. Most of us didn’t really feel our unprivileged-ness all that deeply. We were out there about 45 minutes and then the group decided to just get up and go into the dining hall. What could "they" do to prevent us? Well, of course, on the MV Explorer, a ridiculously well-privileged environment, pretty much nothing. Under a violent, oppressive regime …

But then I talked later to Judyie, who has spent many years living in South Africa, and I was saying that I thought the exercise had just turned into a game. And she said, "but that’s what they did". They finally said: let’s just all go in … they can’t kill all of us …and they went in ... This is what civil disobedience is, Judyie said, and what the students learned by entering the dining hall.

Sherri & I had explained to our workstudy students, earlier in the day, that librarians have always believed -- living under many oppressive regimes -- that everyone should have access to information & freedom to read and that librarians often smuggled books to unprivileged people. We decided that we wouldn't post any of the "shaved heads have priority" signs around the library, if asked (we weren't), or enforce it on the computers. It occurred to me much too late in the day that we should have posted the ALA Bill of Rights.

The American Library Association affirms that all libraries are forums for information and ideas, and that the following basic policies should guide their services.

I. Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation.

IV. Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.

V. A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.

http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/statementspols/statementsif/librarybillrights.htm

I posted it late in the day in several places in the library. Since this simulation goes through Global Studies tomorrow, hopefully a few people with catch it. Tomorrow in Global Studies, the Archbishop is lecturing and Thursday he’ll do a Q & A. On Friday, we arrive in Cape Town.

Ending my day of pretend-unprivileged-ness was attendance at the Captain’s dinner. We got dressed up all fancy and there were many courses and wine was abundantly flowing. I didn’t actually sit at the Captain’s table, but with the Staff Captain, Kostos. Kostos is Greek and the evening was lovely. So much for being unpriviledged …

26 February 2007

pretty sunset

happy monday:











Deej emailed me today to tell me that she & Ewa have put up a world map in the cataloging department and are putting push pins in as I moved around the world! Made me almost cry ...

25 February 2007

cataloging & cleanup

we're rocking & rolling a little bit this evening, but it's another generally beautiful day in the Atlantic Ocean.

And other busy day in the library. We got our first request to go to a class (tomorrow) from Rachael, the geologist. Sherri's going to do this one and she'll be great. Sherri says so long as I agree to do all the cataloging (!), she's happy to do the class. She's been working on a Powerpoint today. We've gotten several dozen requests for proxy server accounts in just the last couple of days, so that's good too. Folks are doing work.

I've been doing a lot of data cleanup with the workstudy students. We removed all the non-UVA barcodes (those items we believe to be lost, from the fall inventory) and we made sure that all the books were LC-classed. There are still items on the video inventory list that we're not finding on the shelves and items on the video inventory list that are not in the catalog and items in the catalog that are not on the video inventory list. Ugh. It makes everyone very grumpy. And many, many, many brief records in the catalog for videos (title only, in most cases), so we're fixing that. I showed one of our workstudy students, Ericka, how to do some copy-cataloging & that all went well today. She's very smart & she's asking exactly the right questions so now I'm determined to turn her into a cataloger! If we could get to a place where we didn't need two separate video lists (one in Excel and one in the catalog), that'd be lovely. There's a bit of original video cataloging that will need to be done too, but I'm putting that off for right now! The Connexion client software is not working for me, because the oclc.org domain is behind the proxy server for Firstsearch authentication and I can't get the Connexion client to make the connection successfully through the proxy server. The Browser works fine and suffices for copy cataloging, but it seems very clunky to me for original cataloging. Especially since the Internet connection is so slow. I'm working with ITC on ideas for fixing my connection through the client.

On the to-do-list definitely includes putting together a best practices manual for cataloging. You can see looking at the items in the catalog & their corresponding creation dates that some things (like the call number formatting, handling of articles when folks didn't understand indicator values, the use (or non-use) of gmds or alternate titles, etc.) varied significantly from voyage to voyage. It would make all my catalogers squirm! And it means you can't get a shelflist, which would be very handy for a collection as small as ours, and you get some very unpredictable results when searching. And, while we're certainly hoping that we'll be taking care of most of the cataloging centrally now at UVA, there will still be items that will get added during the course of the voyage that will need best-practice guidance.

I'd like to get a few last data cleanup issues out of the way before we move to Destiny. Late in the day, I exported a file of all the patron records out of Winnebago so that we could try importing them into Destiny. Stay tuned there.

We haven't been having any trouble with stolen travel guides (or torn-out pages) or stolen staplers (just pens, which I think is innocent enough!). People seem to be using the printed check-out sheet overnight. Reserve materials are largely returned on time. This is all very good news & different from some warnings I had heard/read. We definitely have a number of hot-item reserve books and we've been restricting reserves to one-at-a-time and, when the title is in very hot demand, we've been asking the students to hang out in the library area so that everyone understands what the demand is and the books can be more fairly shared around. Everyone has been incredibly understanding. Textbooks are definitely an issue. Many many students did not buy textbooks in advance through UVA. They were very anxious to try to get library copies in the first week or so, but that's settled down. They're going out on reserve, but my hunch is that folks have also found friends to share with. A few of the Desmond Tutu books are in high demand and we probably could have stood for a few more copies of his biography, for example, but others are sitting. I imagine that'll pick up more as we near South Africa and he starts to lecture in Global Studies.

Announcement a few moments ago: the water depth currently is 2,372 meters. We are crossing over the largest underground mountain chain in the world, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. We are at Greenwich Mean Time (UTC) or 5 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time, so about even with London. We should cross 0 degrees longitude in the next day or two. And no time-change tonight ... wahoo! ...

24 February 2007

officially a shellback

ok, so here’s what happens to you on netpune day: First, they start a couple of nights before by cutting folks’ hair into mohawks to that it’ll be easier to shave on the big day:


Then on Neptune Day itself, they start the morning off around 0800 when the crew (and a few staff & students) run through the halls beating drums to wake everyone up. It reminded me of college. Mount Holyoke had a tradition where the juniors woke the first-years up in the middle of the night for campus-roaming, though I can’t remember what that event was called. Everyone runs around screaming "hol-y-oke, hol-y-oke ..." to a Wizard of Oz tune. This is the crew a little later in the morning:

Then everyone lines up and the crew pours freezing cold sour milk on your head:

(that's Toni, who teaches sociology, along with her daughter)

(and Rachael, who teaches geology, with her husband).

... while everyone watches



... including Archbishop Tutu:

... and then you jump in the pool (which gets milkier by the minute):

... and then you climb out and you have to kiss a fish … and avoid Mary & Michael over-sliming you … let me tell you, Mary & Michael smelled WONDERFUL by the end of this activity. Mary & Michael are already shellbacks, having sailed past the equator before, and so they get the privilege of torturing the rest of us.

And then you bow down & kiss the ring of King Neptune (played by Captain Jeremy):

And then you celebrate your transition from a pollywog to a shellback. Here’s Giles, who teaches Marxism:

And me, just to prove that I did it, with Robin & Dawn:

I was wearing jeans, which you can't tell in that photo, and which are now drip-drying in my shower.

And then (yes, there's more) ... you go get your hair shaved off …

That last one is Lindsay, one of our workstudy students. You can sort-of see her long blond hair in Sherri's photo that I put up the other day:

and even baby Ryder gets his hair shaved:

I did not get mine shaved off, but I did get it cut short. I knew when I got it cut in December for locks of love that I was in trouble with the new length. Too short to stay pulled back and too long to be off my shoulders in the hot hot hot weather we’d be experiencing on this trip. I was miserable with the heat in San Juan and Salvador and it’s only to get worse as we head to Mauritius and India. So, I cut my hair:

Anne-Claire (left) cut most of it & Mary (right, & smelling like fish) did the final bit. We’ve actually cut it even shorter as the day has gone on, still futzing with it ...

I figure you only become a shellback once …

23 February 2007

and the readership comes through ...

with many thanks to Beth & Rhonda & Cary & Garth, we have identified the saint on the bridge as Saint Nicholas of Myra. As with many other things I have posted on this blog, you can read up on him for yourself in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas). Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of:

  • sailors
  • merchants
  • archers
  • children
  • and students in: Greece, Bulgaria, Russia, Georgia, the Republic of Macedonia, Slovakia, Serbia, and Montenegro.
He is notably not the patron saint of students in the United States, so I hope that doesn't cause us any problems along the way. Thanks to Beth, I can also share that there are other patron saints of mariners, see: http://www.catholic-forum.com/saintS/pst00620.htm

Tomorrow we are celebrating Neptune Day, which (to my distress) was not celebrated on the actual day we crossed the equator. Neptune is the god of the sea in Roman mythology (analogous to Poseidon in Greek mythology). Sea-farers honor King Neptune as they cross the equator. He's getting us a day off, which makes us very happy! Actually, we're staffing the library 1600-2300, but he gets us the morning off and that'll do. (Incidentally, we are also staffing the library from on-ship-time to 2300 on our last day in port at each location).

So, anyhow, there's some more religious edification for you from the Jewish girl on Friday night ... Shabbat shalom.

22 February 2007

a view from the bridge

today, I went on a bridge tour.



It was very interesting. Since we are in the middle of the ocean, we were steering on autopilot the whole time we were up there. They have cool electronics:



(which I trust works speedier than the internet access we get!). They have 3 separate radar systems ...







and they also manually update the printed map with our location to be sure we'll know where we are if we lose electronic navigation systems.



The equipment is all about 2 years old. It was replaced spring 2005 when the "wave incident" occurred and the bridge was flooded.

the windows have wipers:



who woulda thunk?, though clearly it makes sense. And an amazing view. This from the very front:



We also learned about the fresh-water-creation systems and the fire suppression system. The ship is divided into segments and fire doors can be closed at anytime anywhere on the ship to keep fire from spreading. The crew has 2 minutes to respond to a fire alarm before the sprinklers start.



We create our own fresh-water from the salt-water. We create 6 tons of water a day and we store 2 days worth of water at any time. We were told that we make more water than we ever use in any given day. When we go to countries where the water is contaminated, we'll stop taking in water about 24 or 48 hours before port and our water consumption aboard will be restricted. The water -- have I mentioned? -- isn't very tasty. Coffee-drinkers are grumbling too. They test it hourly for proper chlorine balance & ph balance but it's pretty awful tasting.

The MV Explorer has 4 engines. We're currently running on two, but if we had to run away from pirates or typhoons, we might use all four. At our current speed, we burn about 3 tons of fuel per hour for a cost of about $1000 per hour.

And just in case all else fails, the bridge has images of saints on the wall. I asked who the saint is (there is a saint for safe travels, isn't there?) but the crew person giving us the tour didn't know. He said he was a Greek saint, because the ship used to be operated by a Greek company, but he didn't know which one. Anybody recognize him?



The weather today was glorious. Brazil's humidity has totally dissipated as we move east. I fell asleep outside by the wake for about an hour today and it was very very pleasant. Eating outside was neither too windy nor too humid.

We lose an hour of sleep tonight. And then again tomorrow night. And then again the night after that. Just so you can be assured that life aboard ship isn't entirely idyllic ... wish me luck ...

21 February 2007

i can be a reference librarian

Jane asks: I have a question about Orixas: how would you define the word? Are they saints? Deities...? And how many are there?

I’m not sure exactly what the proper word would be. Wikipedia refers to orixas (or orishas) as a type of spirit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orisha):

An Orisha (also spelled Orisa and Orixá) is a spirit that reflects one of the manifestations of Olodumare (God) in the Yoruba spiritual or religious system. … Ori literally means the head, but in spiritual matters is taken to mean an inner portion of the soul which determines personal destiny and success. Ase, which also spelled “Axe,” “Ashe,” or “Ache,” is the life-force that runs though all things, living and inanimate. Ase is the power to make things happen. It is an affirmation that is used in greetings and prayers, as well as a concept about spiritual growth. Orisha devotees strive to obtain Ase through Iwa-Pele or gentle and good character, in turn they experience alignment with the Ori or what others might call inner peace or satisfaction with life.

The religion is practiced differently in different places in the Americas (including Brazil, Puerto Rico, Trinidad & Tobago, Mexico, the U.S., and Venezuela). Candomblé is one manifestation and Santería is another. That same wikipedia article has a “partial” list of the orishas that totals 14. One of our religion professors gave me a list that counts seven as the “major” orishas. There is variation among spelling as well and this all seems to be due to the diaspora of the Yoruba religion across the Americas. The Wikipedia article on Candomblé says: “Some scholars argue that the religion is African peoples uniting under similar African practices, making the religion a New World practice instead of a remnant of African practice.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candombl%C3%A9)

The Portuguese Catholics banned Candomblé (as they did capoeira) and slaves began to associate the orishas with Catholic saints as a way to hide their religious practice. They would celebrate particular saints’ days by invoking the associated orisha and would publicly honor the saints when doing the Candomblé ritual dances. Over time the two became quite intertwined in Brazil (as did some Native American traditions). It reminded me much of the Catholics in the southwest that lit candles on Friday nights & had other Jewish rituals without knowing or understanding that their ancestors had been expelled from Spain. But in Brazil, the Candomblé heritage seems to have stayed whole at a higher conscious level. Both the rituals and the underlying orisha spirituality have survived. The tour guide in Cachoeria said that the Catholic Church has come to terms with this only recently after scholarship and tourism have brought the connections out into the open. She said the Catholic Church was finally “forced to admit” what they probably already knew, that the Yorbuba pantheon was really at the heart of many of the Afro-Brazilian Catholic rituals.

Walked more around Salvador today and took some photos and spent out the rest of my reales (bought a necklace & some more orisha-related-items).

these are in the Church of Sao Francisco. Portuguese tiles:





wax-museum-like statues of saints. The statues have real hair. Nuns were not allowed to cut their hair and when they died, their hair was then cut for these statues:


And from last week, here’s the photo of our workstudy students (courtesy of Sherri): An, Lindsay, Erika, Ericka, and Roxanne. We were celebrating Erika’s birthday before we arrived in Brazil.

I'll post more about them as we go along. I just left the 7th deck watching us pull out of port in Brazil. We're now headed across the Atlantic. It's too late tonight to articulate anything profound, but I'm definitely feeling that in my soul: pulling out of port, watching the pilot jump off the ship and turn around to head back to Salvador, while we start out into the Atlantic ... Watching the lights become distant behind us ... it's beautiful ... goodnight to you all here in the Americas ...

20 February 2007

carnaval, churrascaria, capoeira, & cachoeira

omigosh, lots to blog about & I’m behind. One of the students described Brazil as being overly visually stimulating. One of the life-long-learners said that, writing home, she told her family that she was out of adjectives to describe the experience. And it’s only port #2.

Sunday morning, Mary & I went to the Mercado Modelo, where I bought some beads, and walked around Pelourinho, the upper city. The bottom floor of the Mercado was once a holding place for slaves being sold at auction and the top stories are now a tourist market.

Pelourinho is a Unesco World Heritage Site with lots of narrow cobblestone streets. The word pelourinho means whipping post. Slaves were publicly tortured there and auctioned. Brazil was the last country in the Americas to outlaw slavery. While certain slaves were freed earlier, slavery was legal in some fashion in Brazil all the way up to 1885.

A few other items of note on Brazil: Brazil has more arable land than any other country in the world. It also has one of the leading economies in the world. Yet, its wealth distribution is abysmal. The rich are very very rich and the poor are very very poor. Brazil’s population is 46% Black, 52% White, and 2% Native American. Brazil has very poor public schools and very good public (free) universities. So, the rich get to go to the university completely for free, while the poor are not well-enough educated to be able to even compete for the available slots. Brazil is a country of clear dichotomy & contradiction everywhere you turn.

A few photos of Pelourinho:

Sunday night, I led a group of 26 students/faculty/life-long-learners on an evening “camarote” to Carnaval. A camarote is a viewing station, where things are supposed to be calmer than down on the street. It was madness on the street. 2 million people come to Salvador for Carnaval. The music was crazy loud. We saw some very famous Brazilian bands, but I don’t remember any of their names … it was a fun evening. And about all I needed to see of Carnaval. Having done the stay-up-all-night-on-the-street-thing in Cadiz when I was living in Spain, I didn’t feel the need to repeat that experience. Many students of course have been trying out the approach. The trip leadership went fine. My job is to make sure folks get on the bus, to be the SAS liaison for the guides, & to know who is not returning. I’m not responsible for making sure students actually return. The local guides were fabulous. At first, students were telling me they had decided to stay and that was fine. Many students were drinking, but largely they were all responsible. Dean Mike went also and it was good to have him there, but all in all everything went well. Of the 26 that went, 20 students returned on the bus and 6 life-long-learners took a taxi home earlier in the evening. No one was unaccounted for. I didn’t take my camera with me, so no photos of Carnaval. My apologies.

Yesterday, I took a trip to Itaparica Island, which turned out mostly to be a beach trip. First, we stopped (via boat) at an island that was given by the King of Portugal to the Jesuits. Two Jesuits were exploring the bay (Bahia de Todos os Santos) and decided not to return to Salvador and so they stayed on the island. (The Jesuits, incidentally, also built the first manual elevator in Salvador to haul goods from the port area to the upper city.) On the little island, there is a lighthouse and a church, but mostly just a beach.

The water was really warm. Boats pulled up right to the beach, so the water was lovely until it started smelling like diesel from the boat exhaust.

My back & shoulders are mildly burnt again. We then took the boat to Itaparica where we had lunch and went to the mineral spring. The spring has three taps: one for money, one for health, and one for youth. We drank from all (despite being told not to drink the water … money/health/youth seemed worth the risk!) We also watched some capoeira, which is an Afro-Brazilian dance/martial art. The story goes that the slaves turned martial arts into a dance form in order to hide their strength & fitness-practice from their slave-owners. It is beautiful to watch and the boys/men who do this are incredible athletes. It’s hard to imagine that they were hiding anything from the slaveowners. Certainly makes you wonder ...

Last night, a group of us then went to a churrascaria, which is described simply as a “steakhouse”. Vegetarians might just well stop reading now. It’s like dim sum, but with meat instead of Chinese food. First, there were the most incredible french-fries ever eaten (as an appetizer on the table with bread) -- cooked with dende oil -- which almost everything is fried with here. Hugely high in saturated fat, but omigod, good. Then there was a buffet that had shimp so large as you’ve ever seen, and caviar, and a million different cheeses, and salad, and a peppers & pickels & salmon & on and on and on. After that course, the waiters start running around with giant skewers full of all sorts of different kinds of meat and they slice it right there in front of you. We all had tweezer-like-things (tongs) that we would use to grab the meat off the skewer. They come and stand to the left of each person at the table and slice for you personally. I have no idea what I ate, but everything was incredibly delicious. We were advised to go slowly, but it was impossible. Waiters were running around amongst all the tables and feeding us meat like crazy. There were tables of 16 running all throughout the center of the restaurant with smaller tables to the sides. It was loud and busy and bustling and just nuts. There was a table of SAS students who sent us (faculty & staff) over a bottle of champagne. Dessert was amazing flan. It was totally nuts. I didn’t have a camera with me, but others did. I was going to get their photos for the blog, but better to just go to the restaurant’s website & see for yourself: http://www.grupoboipreto.com.br/index1.htm First click on “carnes” (meat) and imagine giant skewers of all those things appearing at your plate faster than you can think, then click on “buffet” and check out our first course, and then of course dessert (sobremesas). Then (unless you are vegetarian), immediately go book a flight to Salvador.

And then today … I went to Cachoeira, a colonial town about two hours outside of Salvador. Our tour guide was fabulous and went into a ton of detail about the Brazilian economy (and wealth distribution) and politics and land reform. On our way there, we stopped first at a rural market and then at farm that is part of the MST movement (http://www.mstbrazil.org/). In Brazil, they have squatter’s rights. People can come stake out a piece of unused private land. Landowners can contest and can sue but, if they don’t, after a certain period of time it becomes legal for the squatters to own the land. From the MST website:

Since 1985, the MST has peacefully occupied unused land where they have established cooperative farms, constructed houses, schools for children and adults and clinics, promoted indigenous cultures and a healthy and sustainable environment and gender equality. The MST has won land titles for more than 350,000 families in 2,000 settlements as a result of MST actions, and 180,000 encamped families currently await government recognition. Land occupations are rooted in the Brazilian Constitution, which says land that remains unproductive should be used for a "larger social function."

As you might imagine, not all in Brazil agree with the MST position. The woman we met there makes chocolate on her land from her coco plants. We tasted the raw coco fruit (which tastes nothing like chocolate) and learned a bit about how she makes chocolate without any technological assistance. And, of course, we bought some.

Then, we continued on to Cachoeira, which is a beautiful, colorful, riverbank town. Cachoeira established itself by ousting the Portuguese and helping to establish an independent Brazil. We had a lovely lunch inside a converted convent (Pousada do Convento do Carmo) and then wandered around the town. I’ve uploaded a ton of pictures to the map above, here are just a few:








Cachoeira is home to one of Candomblé's strongest religious centers. I bought a painting of the 0rixás, which is the first official purchase that may be difficult to transport home. I’m sure there will be others …

Tomorrow is our last day in Salvador. I am off to finish the evening with ice cream on the pool deck. What a crazy life I lead ...